Balto's Quest
by Sleazy E
Summary: Balto has been having trouble with his memories. And when he accidently lets his frustration loose, he decides to go seek his past. What follows is a journey of self discovery.
1. The Begining

**Chapter 1. **

The spring dusk completely surrounded him.

It surrounded Balto in the very ends of daylight. The sun had gone down over the curve in the earth, and now left the very trail ends of blue sky to the west. A warm southern wind blew up over the ocean, across the last bit of ice that still hugged the land, and surrounded Balto. Balto found the salty air rude as it invaded his nostrils and mouth.

The old fishing trawler loomed up behind him, and seemed to become taller as the night went on and grew darker. It became a hidden scary place where ghosts might hide and lurk.

But everything around Balto was not scary as he lay in the cool moist grass. He was surrounded by friends and family who were laughing and smiling just as he was. Directly next to Balto lay Jenna, her entire body stretched out the length of his and pushed exceptionally close to his. Her head lay against his shoulder, her eyes half closed in a euphoria. Across from Balto lay his son and three friends, Kirby, Ralph, and Dusty. All of them silhouetted in the long gone sun, and by the lights of town.

All five of them were quiet, and this gave Balto a moment to reflect, and notice his friends and loved ones around him. It also gave Balto time to reflect on the hero stories that had been told all evening by Kodi and his friends.

"Oh, I got a story!" dusty stated out of the darkness, her face obscured by the position of the light. Balto focused in on her teeth, which were the only part of her body that he could spot in the low light, and prepared himself for one of her true stories about her time pulling the line.

'Pulling the line' had become a common fraise that the mail dogs had come up with in the past few months. They used it all the time, and whenever they could, like children using a bad word for the first time and not being punished for it. Balto wondered if pulling the line would permanently replace mushing, or was it just until they got bored of it and moved on to something else.

"Well anyways," dusty started. "It was about two weeks ago on what we didn't know would be the last mail run of the season. Out fearless leader." she turned her head to eye Kodi.

Kodi glared back at her, ready to pounce at the first slanderous remark that she would throw his way. He knew what had happened on the run, and knew that she would rub it in his face.

"He lead us out across the ice of the large wide river towards this island covered with washed up trees. Then halfway across the river, guess what happens?"

Everyone unknowingly leaned in for the punch line that was coming.

"The ice broke." she said it without any care.

"Oh my," Jenna stated in surprise, raising her head off of Balto's shoulder and leaving her mouth open slightly.

"Suddenly water was all around us. We were running on fragments of ice that seemed like nothing was holding them up. Dark brown water flowed up over the ice, and came up through the breaks. We began diving and running and jumping from one ice flow to another. One minute you were running on the ice, the next you were being drug through the water. I have no idea how we made it to the island"

"Why it was my fearless leading." Kodi interjected with a million dollar smile.

"Yeah your fearless leading that nearly got us killed!" dusty yelled back, slightly annoyed of his arrogance, even though it was in fun.

"Well it was my leading that got us across the ice to the island."

"Yeah well"

"ok you two, knock it off," Balto said stepping in as ref. he had found himself doing it all afternoon to keep the small squabbles from turning into full fledged battle royals. Balto just shook his head wondering how they every functioned by themselves.

"Well we make it to the island okay. But we were wet and cold. Our master, Mr. Simpson, knew that we had not time to warm up. He ran to the front of the sled and grabbed Kodi by the collar. He then pulled us up onto a tall pile of washed up wood; and by the time we got to the top the water was running over the island." dusty then stared directly at Jenna, as if speaking right to her. "Then all these male dogs started whining and wetting themselves."

"I was not wetting myself," Ralph interjected, causing everyone to stare awkwardly at him.

"It, it, was just water, that was flowing off of me."

Before anyone could say anything Ralph started up again.

"No guys, I'm serious, it was just water"

"Ralph."

"Just because we were in a life or death situation"

"Ralph."

"Doesn't mean that."

"Ralph!" dusty finally had to yell, shutting Ralph up. "We don't really care Ralph, it was an expression."

"yeah, yeah, I knew that," Ralph seemed really embarrassed by the whole thing and made himself into as small a figure as he could while the story went on.

"So were stuck on this log jam for several hours, teetering on the edge of a cold water grave. When guess what happens upstream?"

Everyone leaned unknowingly in again.

"A ice jam, quarter mile up the river. The jam instantly stopped all the water, and everything became shallow; in some places right down to the bare riverbed. Mr. Simpson knew exactly what to do. He grabbed Kodi by the collar and pulled him down the logs, across the island, through the river, and to the other side … that was the end of our line pulling for the winter." dusty paused to look at Kodi. "And possibly our lead dogs career"

"Hey now I told you it wasn't my fault. You didn't know the river was going to break up at that exact second. Did you?" Kodi jumped to a confrontation.

"Well I'm not the one who's supposed to know that. I'm supposed to stare at your butt, and pull the sled."

"Well maybe if you spent less time staring at me, and more time doing your job" Kodi said very snooty.

"Oh, he got you dusty"

"Shut-down." Ralph and Kirby said at the exact same time.

Dusty was deeply embarrassed by the whole moment. She turned her head away from the crowd and laughter that began to scratch at her ears. The laughter went on for several seconds

"Enough!" Jenna instantly broke into the conversation seeing how much they were hurting Dusty, and making her cry, or so she thought she was. The three young boys were instantly quit. But Jenna wasn't done with them yet, she still had an ace up her sleeve. "I seem to remember a young Kodiak, who had a crush on someone special, and was absolutely terrified, that she would even talk to you."

Kodi gulped and looked sidelong over at dusty.

Dusty could see the sheer terror in his eyes as he glanced meekly at her. It was time to tear him down.

She turned and gave Kodi a gleam that froze him in his tracks. Kodi clenched his teeth as tight as he could and no longer looked at dusty. But dusty didn't need the eye contact to melt him. She got right next to him and lightly rubbed her shoulder against his strong muscular shoulder. "Is it true?" she said with a smile.

Kodi gulped hard and dared not answer. But the silence that persisted told everyone everything they needed. And then a great belly laugh started in dusty as she turned away with a huge grin. Ralph and Kirby instantly broke into laughter with Dusty, and now Kodi was in the spotlight he had created.

"Now you know how to stop him in his tracks." Jenna smiled at dusty, as dusty turned back to her sitting spot, still laughing at her newfound dominance over Kodi.

Kodi loosened up from the whole moment and tried not to let it get to him. But Kirby and Ralph's snickering went on for a time more.

Balto smiled with advice for his son. "Women, they tie you in knots, don't they?"

Kodi smiled and looked at dusty who eyed him out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah."

A long silent, awkward, moment fell over the dogs. As the night had carried on the moments in between stories had grown longer and quieter, filled with passing glances and unspecified movements of fidgeting dogs.

"You know." Jenna started out of the blue. She looked out to the sea, away from everyone. "This is the same time of year that Balto came to Nome." she paused as if waiting for an answer, but carried on before anyone could have answered. "Did you know that Balto didn't have a name until he came to Nome?"

"Really?" Kodi spoke up. Moving his gaze from his mother to his father. "Then who name you dad."

Balto paused, trying to remember the face of the old man who had named him. His face was small and compacted into his head, and was always covered with a rough five-o'clock shadow, but the man seemed distant and fuzzy to Balto.

"He was old." Balto started. "And he owned this boat behind me." Balto turned his head, motioning to the side of the boat that loomed up right behind him. "It happened shortly after coming to Nome in the early reaches of spring, several years back. I was living on the boat at the time, and he came walking up the plank onto the boat, and just looked at me. It had been a total surprise to see this man standing there. I had my head sticking out around the corner of the helm at him. He moved closer, and I backed away. He kept doing this until he had me clear of any obstruction so he could see me clearly. I was very thin and weak looking, the old man could see that."

Balto paused to see the four faces of his son and friends watching with great interest and intent.

"So, he left the boat and headed back to town. I didn't fully understand, or trust, the man animal." Balto paused; he hadn't used the term man animals in such a long time. "So, I left the boat and ran to a safe spot to watch from. Nearly ten minutes later he returned with something in his hands. He walked up onto the boat, then back down and away, but this time he didn't carry the thing he brought. I waited for several minutes until he was out of site, and safely back in town. Then I went back up onto the boat to see what he had left. He had left a silvery tin dish filled with scraps of meat. I devoured it and waited for his return … then next day he returned with a small sack of meat. This time I stayed on the boat and watched him put the food into my dish and leave. Of course I stayed on the opposite end of the boat. We kept doing this for several days, until one day he decided to stay. I waited for him to leave, but he didn't. I stood there for several hours until I was sure he wasn't going to go anywhere. I then slowly inched my way closer to the plate; and when I got within ten feet of him, I made a silent vow that if he tried to touch me I'd rip his hand clean off." Balto smiled at the grim comment.

"I stuck my head into the meat and slowly began to eat, but I didn't keep to my vow …" Balto let it trail off.

"Well what did you do?" Kodi asked.

Balto gave a long satisfied smile. "I melted in his hands."

"What happened next?" Kodi said anxious to hear more.

"Well, every day after that the Man Animal returned, and we went through the same process, but it took a lot less time. He began bringing me other things, like a wool blanket on a cold morning. And he also brought me some weird little wind up cat; I don't think I ever played with it." Balto lowered his brow to the memory of himself staring at the small little wind up cat that made the most obnoxious squeaking as it moved.

"Then what?"

"Huh?"

Kodi smiled at his fathers drifting of thought, then waited for his father to continue.

"Then one day he showed up to the boat, and fed me as usual. Then he smiled as I ate. 'I have thought of name for you' he dug some grime out of his fingernails. 'Yup, Balto is a handsome name for you. I will spread it around so others know of you as my dog.' then three weeks later he said he was getting on a boat; and he never returned."

For the first time Balto realized how intently Kodi and his three friends were listening to him. Their eyes were fixed on Balto and their ears were stuck straight upright, constantly listening, and comprehending, every word that had left his mouth. For a moment a lingering silence hovered over there little circle.

"What did the dogs in town call you before you got a name?" Kirby kick started the silence.

Balto sighed. "They most often called me 'wolf dog'. But a few times I had been referred to as 'puppy killer' 'mate stealer'."

"oh how cruel." Dusty's female virtue shining through.

"What about your mother that you've told me about when I was younger?" Kodi's mouth, eyes, ears, and nose, ready to listen.

Balto wondered why Kodi seemed so anxious to know, but maybe he was just curious of his past. "Well my mother was a white wolf with soft velvety fur. And even though I never met, or knew, my father, I know that he was all dogs; because I'm half dog."

"Your father must have been into the wild type. Huh Balto." Kirby quickly interjected after Balto stopped. A laugh quickly fallowed Kirby's humorous antic-dote.

But Balto didn't think that Kirby was that funny. Something inside Balto broke, a shield, a shield that kept Balto from letting his true thoughts and feeling about things and friends out. He could feel it break across the side of his skull and scatter across the bottom of it. His mind scrambled to put it back together before he did something he would regret, but it wouldn't happen in time.

A low growl began down within Balto's stomach making its way up into his chest and throat, where it first became noticeable. Jenna first noticed the low rumbling coming through Balto's side and vibrating her whole body. She had been laughing with Kodi and his friends, but knew that if Balto was growling he wasn't happy.

The growl came out of Balto's mouth, making him stand in a crouched position. Balto's from paws dug down into the soft soil ready to pounce. His ears flattened back against his head, and his upper lip curled up over his front teeth, showing them to everyone who would look.

Dusty, Kirby, and Ralph, all stopped silent when they caught the hatred in Balto's movement, but Kodi didn't catch it in time. Kodi continued laughing, eyes closed, as if the world had been trying to make him laugh. But he didn't laugh to much longer then his friends.

"You little insignificant scab of a son." Balto's anger rained down directly on Kodi.

Everyone's jaws dropped, their eyes widened, and they stared at Balto in shock.

Kodi could see the anger in his father's eyes. He could feel himself shrivel up inside himself, the fear of his father's teeth and words impending on him. Kodi's legs tucked up under his body until they were touching one another, balancing him like a top. His body shrunk in with a expelling of air, causing his shoulders to come close around his lowered head. His ears dropped back in a puppy like submission, and his smile sucked into his mouth where he locked it tight between his teeth.

"But."

"But nothing!"

Why had Kodi tried to talk back to his father? Was it his conches coming to the surface to prove that he was right and his father was wrong? Kodi didn't know exactly what it was that had made him speak out, but he knew he was going to talk back more.

"Dad"

Balto answered with a growl which made Kodi bite his lips harder between his teeth. Balto grinned at the power he still held over his son, the way he could silence him with just a few simple words. Balto turned and walked off, his eyes crossing Jenna's momentarily. He knew Jenna would soon be fallowing and she would have a thing or two to say to him.

As soon as Balto had turned and was moving along the side of his boat for the darkness, Kodi raised his ears and wrinkled his upper lip involuntarily up over his teeth. But he dared not growl, unless his father heard him and returned ten fold. He dropped his ears, and lip, and head in defeat.

"Kodi, I swear, I ... I, just don't know what's gotten into him … something must be bothering him." Jenna said trying to reassure Kodi that it wasn't his fault, but Kodi didn't seem to care.

Kodi looked at his fathers back end vanish into the darkness a hundred feet in front of his boat. "Like I really care." the words were hollow and unfamiliar to his tongue, but he didn't show it. "Come on guys, I think we've had enough fun for one evening."

Kodi turned past his mother, "Kodi, it's not your fault, something's just bothering him, that all."

Kodi didn't answer.

Dusty, Kirby, and Ralph, all stood as Kodi moved in between them. They then took up a V shape pattern behind him, all of them quietly fallowing their leader back to town.

Jenna watched her son walk off broken, and she could feel an anger building inside her, but it was held to a degree. She turned her head and looked at the spot in the dark where Balto had vanished. She would find out what was wrong with him. Jenna ran after him, her bushy red tail bouncing along behind her like a fox.

She came up on Balto, still walking off towards some unknown place, and set herself in stride next to him.

"Balto?" she was very calm.

Balto didn't answer, never even turning his head to see who was talking to him.

"Balto, what was that." still calm.

"What was what?" Balto didn't even turn his head, afraid to look Jenna in the eyes.

Jenna could feel the frustration building insider her from Balto's child-like, coy behavior. "That back there, what was that?"

"It was his fault."

Jenna bounded forward until she was ahead of Balto. She squared herself right up with Balto's shoulders, and face, so she could look him in the eyes while she yelled at him. "It was not there're fault!"

Jenna's words spiked Balto in the nose, but he had little time to listen to her. Balto moved to the right and brushed along side of her, and kept going. But Jenna wouldn't hear of his silence.

She ran ahead of him again, and squared her shoulders with his. "Now don't think you're going to walk away, and everything's going to be fine. Now your going to let me speak my mind or else." 'else,' turning into a low growl.

Balto eyed Jenna down. Her feet were dug into the soft soil, pointed forward, ready to attack, her teeth bared with her feminine, un-scary, growl. Balto knew that she would be able to get the first blow, but after that Balto would be able to bring her down.

Balto's mind suddenly kicked back on when he realized what he was thinking about. He realized what he had done to Kodi in front of his friends, and he lowered his head in embarrassment. He looked at Jenna under his brow, she was still ready to attack, he knew that he had to tell her what had been going on lately to straighten everything out.

"I've been having dreams."

"Dreams?"

Dreams had always been a signal of something bad. The first time she had heard about Balto's dreams was when he returned without Aleu. That was the first time that Jenna began to realize that Balto's dreams may mean something. The next time Balto had dreams was of flying. Then the bush pilot came and challenged her son to a race, which Balto lead, and won. Then the pilot crashed with Boris in the plane, and Balto had to go after them both, and almost died if Kodi and friends hadn't showed up.

"What do you mean dreams?"

Balto could see the worried look in her eyes. She had lost the attack stance and growl, which was replaced by the worried feet together and curious open mouth.

"Not so much dreams, as memories." Balto said reassuringly

"Memories?"

"Being spring and all, I've had a lot of thought about my parents. And really just a lot of thought about what happened to them."

"So you blew up on our son over it?" she turned annoyed.

"I really didn't mean to … I mean … I just slipped."

"Slipped is right. Do you remember what you said to our son?"

Balto shook his head. "Kinda … maybe I should go and apologies."

Balto and Jenna both looked towards town where they could see four dogs coming into the light of town, their body's small to the buildings.

"I don't think that would be such a good idea. Kodi's really mad."

"And he should be. I acted like a complete …" Balto trailed off with the frustration of not being able to find the right word. "What should I do Jenna?"

She looked at him for a moment, seeing how much he wanted her help. "How much does your past hurt you?"

Balto looked inside himself. "A lot, it hurts a lot."

Jenna sighed with an idea brewing in her mind. "Didn't you say that your mother was the white wolf that helped you at the bottom of the cliff? The one you saw after Aleu went across the ice?"

"Yeah, my mother Aniu. Why?"

"And didn't you say that Nava spoke of your mother before you knew she was your mother?"

"Yeah?"

Jenna smiled through the darkness at Balto. "Well what if you go out and find Nava, and ask him about your mother. Unless you've already done that?"

"I haven't." Balto thought about what Jenna was asking him to go do. It wouldn't be too hard to find him. It may take a day or two, but that would be relatively short time to find the answers to his past.

She smiled and giggled, brining Balto from his thought. "So why don't you just go find out what happened. Then you can come back and apologize to Kodi. And this will never happen again."

Balto thought deeply about the journey at hand. It would take at most a week to find Nava in such a great big country, but it wouldn't be impossible. The only thing he had to worry about was Jenna, and being gone only a week nothing would happen. Everything was already set for him to go and discover his past, providing Nava knew enough about it.

"Ok, I'll go find Nava, and ask him about my mother."

It was decided.


	2. The Quest Begins

**Chapter 2 **

Balto stood just outside of town on the morning grass at the spot where the muddy sands of the streets faded away to the soft native grass. Balto couldn't help but notice how soft the grass was on his feet. Most of the year the ground is covered with snow and ice, which was terribly rough on the feet. The snow crystals would always plague him, sticking between his toes and rubbing his feet raw. Sometimes he would get up to twenty crystals between each toe, each of them carving the flesh away like a knife.

But not now, the grass held his feet like a soft fur carpet. Balto remembered walking across a bearskin rug while visiting some old man with Rosie's father. The bearskin was soft and velvety on his feet, and Balto wondered if his fur would be this good to stand on.

Around him was spring. Everywhere he looked he could see spring jutting forth from one corner or another. In town flowers and grass coming up through steps that led up to the porches of the houses, and birds nesting in every crook and cranny they could find.

In front of Balto, out away towards the sunrise, a great expansive blanket of spring came forth from where no human could push it down in the wake of his progress. Green grass and wildflowers came up in a rolling blanket between him and his boat, and even beyond that. Even though Balto's boat was the only dark spot on his vision, it wasn't the scary place it seemed, but a place of beauty where his life in Nome had begun.

The sun had risen several hours previous, and now was changing from the beautiful glow of the morning, to the light which filled the void of the day, and chased the scary creatures away.

On Balto's left, out away from town, a hill rose covered with flowers and grass, and the occasional scattered boulder. Behind the boulders, in the shadows, were the last trailing bits of winter, slowly vanishing every day as they sun moved further north. Balto smiled. That was the hill that Balto first saw the town of Nome from

Balto watched the carpenter, and two hired hands, walk away from town towards the river that ran down by the hill and to the sea, the river Balto would soon be crossing. All three of them were weighted down with pack boards stacked to the sky with nails, wood, and tools. They were on there're way to the fish wheels that resided on the banks of the river next to a cabin that had been converted into a smoke house for the fish. They had been hired several weeks back to go out and repair the wheels, and get them set in the river. Balto wondered why they still weren't done, but figured they must have been really banged up since last season.

"Are you ready Balto?" came Jenna's voice.

Balto turned around to see her walking easily up to him, her fur fluffed out. The anger that she had expressed to him last night had vanished with the coming of the day. Balto nuzzled up to Jenna's neck. "I don't think I'm going."

"What, what do you mean your not going?"

Balto gave a half smile. "I don't know how long it's going to take, and, and, I don't know if Nava's going to have any information for me."

"Oh Balto, don't worry about how long your gone, as long as you find what you need to know. And I'm sure if Nava doesn't know anything about her, he'll at least point you in the right direction."

"But I might miss you?" Balto said with a sly smile.

Jenna knew how to get all the excuses off his mind and nuzzled him. "Don't worry about me Balto, I'll be just fine."

"But what if something happens?"

"Balto." she stared at him, the nuzzle having no effect on his excuses. "In all the time that you've known me, how many times has something life threatening happened to me?"

"It's never happened. But what if it does?"

"All our pups and their friends will help me if something happens."

"But what if it's something they can't handle?"

"Balto, their all a part of you, and they all have your courage, your brains, and your will. So there is nothing that they can't handle."

Balto looked around, a curious thought entered his mind and he didn't find him near. "Where's Kodi?"

Jenna sighed, turned her head away, and flattened her ears across her head. "He opted, not to come see you off."

Balto shook his head. "I suppose he's real angry at me?"

"I haven't talked to him about you."

Balto shook his head in agreement again.

Balto tried to imagine exactly what Kodi was feeling. Was he real angry with him? He must be if he decided not to see his father off. He must be stewing in his own anger right about now, thinking about how evil and angry his father had been the night before. Balto made a vow to himself that the second he got back he would apologize to his son, but for now the day was burning on.

"Well." Balto broke the silence. "The sooner I get going, the sooner I get back."

"I suppose."

They both stood for a moment, staring at each other waiting for something to happen. They both leaned their heads in at the same time, and nuzzled up against one another.

"Be careful Balto." Jenna whispered into Balto's ear.

"I will be. I love you"

Then Balto broke away from Jenna, smiled, and turned towards his boat. Balto instantly set himself into a steady trot that covered a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of time. He paused for a moment as he passed his boat to look back. Jenna still stood where she was, the sun casting her shadow back across the ground to the foot of a building.

Balto turned and fell once again into the same fast paced trot until he reached the river. At the river paused for a moment to see if there was any way for him to jump across the river without getting his feet wet, but there wasn't. So Balto just pushed his way through the rock filled water to the other side and beyond. And as Balto walked he began to think, and remember, his past.


	3. Balto's first memory

**Chapter 3 **

There was no wind to move the heavy flakes of snow that fell so thick they would completely cover a body within seconds. It fell so hard, and thick, that it distorted the distinction between ground and sky, making any civilized winter travel impossible on this flat, cold, plateau.

It was incredibly cold out here where no one would feel it, and hopefully would never feel it. It was the same kind of cold that could freeze a cup of cold water instantly. It was cold.

Through the snow, out of sight, came a steady patting of feet as they drew closer with a crystalline crunching sound as feet dropped; and sucking sound as they were lifted and pulled bits of snow out to rub like bits of glass as they were swept by the moving feet. They crept ever louder, and closer, until a shadow began to appear through the storm.

A wolf appeared through the storm, steadily trotting in some unseen direction, to some unseen place. She was all white except the very tips of her ears, and black rings around her eyes, which were a great feature during sunny days across the snow. But today they were unneeded and squinted against the falling snow.

She had been running a long time and yellowish saliva had formed around the edges of her mouth where it froze into large, annoying, ice chunks, which every few minutes she would shake her head in hope of letting them fly.

In her mouth she carried a small fluffy, grey pup; the same yellow saliva that was on the side of her mouth soaked the back of the pups neck, and began to form the same yellow block. The pup had a very dark grey complexion on his back and down all four of his legs; with a lighter color on his belly and inside his legs. The pups back legs were lifted up to cover his belly from the cold with his tail tucked between his legs against his belly. His front legs were brought down and crossed on his chest.

The pup had been carried for a very long time now, and was on the verge of exhaustion from staying awake for so long. His eyes fluttered open and closed as he was carried on, falling between awake and asleep with his mothers steps.

The white wolf suddenly came to a stop. Had it been something in the wind, a sound in the quiet, a smell that may have passed through her nostrils? She stood for a moment, breathing in and out with a sucking motion, trying to figure out what it was that made her stop.

For a moment she thought that it must have been nothing but her sixth sense acting up and giving her a signal of fear. She motioned to move on, then stopped when her sense told her, 'danger.' Her six sense always meant something, and the only time she had been put in danger was when she didn't listen to her senses.

It was out there. The fear that had drove her to take such drastic measure as to take her son away from his home, into a freezing storm in hope that she would be able to get away from it. But wherever it was, it was close.

She felt panic run up her spine and clench onto the pup's fur, making him squeak with pain. She began searching around her for the source of the fear, even though she couldn't see it and wouldn't until it was right on top of her and the pup.

The pup. She couldn't take the pup into an overpowered fight. She would be lucky to keep herself alive, let alone a pup. The only option she had for the pup was to hide him while she went and fought it off, but she couldn't just dig down here and hide him, she would never find him in the falling snow; she had to run and find a reference point where she could burry him in the warm snow.

She looked off in the direction where she figured the encroaching evil wasn't coming from and began to run. She picked the pace up steadily until she was a missile shooting through the snow with a small grey pup between her teeth.

The pup could feel the difference in his mothers stride and looked around to see what was going on. He could see his mother's foot reaching out underneath him, pounding into the snow, falling back behind her, and repeating. He couldn't see the definition in the snow to tell how fast they were moving, but knew they were going at top speed.

The mother ran as straight as she could through the snow, her eyes squinted even tighter with the added with to the falling snow; but even with her closed eyes she could see it coming into her view.

At first it was just a dark shadow coming through the snow directly in front of her. It was tall enough to be a grizzly, or a polar bear. But as she drew closer and her pace slowed she began to realize what it actually was, a pine tree. The tree vanished up into the falling snow, which meant that it had to be over fifty feet tall. The branches of the tree held large accumulations of snow, which fell every few minutes as they were overloaded with snow. This provided a large snow pile which completely encircled the strong, still barked, trunk, a great place to hide her pup.

She was really hoping for something bigger, such as the base of a mountain, but this would half to do for now. She stepped to the base of the tree where the snow was deep, and with her right paw, scratched out a small hole big enough for the pup to fit in. She scratched it out in seconds and set the pup down inside of it. She then set her paws in a bulldozer fashion to burry the pup when.

"Wait mom, I'm scard." the grey pup stared feebly up at his mother, snow beginning to cover his face, making him flutter his eyelids.

The mother bit her lips between her teeth as if she were about to cry. "Listen honey, it will only be a few minutes, then I promise I'll be right back."

"Pwese stay with me mom, I'm scard?"

She bit her lip harder until she could taste blood on the tip of her tongue. "Listen, I have to go do this. But I promise you after I do this I will never leave you, and I will always be there whenever you're scared, alone, or need help. I'll be there."

The pup closed his eyes and bowed his head in understanding. His mother bit her lip one more time and snowplowed her son under, completely covering him. She then bent her head over the snow where her son was buried.

"Now I want you to stay here, and don't come out for anything, I'll be right back."

The white wolf closed her eyes, bit her lips, turned and walked off knowing that she might never see her son again.

The pup listened from his snow tomb as his mother turned and trotted off. Then it was silent.

For many minutes he did as his mother had instructed him and stayed under the snow. Every now and then snow would fall of the tree and shock him into thinking that his mother was here, but he quickly realized it was just the tree.

The pup wasn't quite sure how much time had passed, but knew he wasn't going to go on blind, underneath the snow any longer. The pup slowly raised his head, breaking the snow casket in a foot long crack that stretched like a smile across his brow. The pup looked out and was disappointed to see that it was completely black. Night had fallen sometime while he was in the small tomb, and looking for his mother in the dark would be suicide. The pup closed the opening to the small snow casket and figured that when his mother returned she would dig him up.

The pup opened his eyes, but it did little good against the dark of his snow tomb. For a moment he didn't realize where he was, or what had happened the previous evening, and he smiled in his naïve bliss. Then thoughts began to come to the pup. The first one being of his stomach and how empty it felt, then the second one being of the bringer of food, his mother.

It hit the pup like a shock and he shot his head up through the snow, completely breaking it away from his face. It was brighter then it had been the previous evening during the storm. The storm still raged, but the thick snowfall had subsided.

The pup turned his head in a complete three sixty. The tree being the only object he could see. The pup turned his head skyward and could see a patch a blue sky through the clouds and flurries of snow. The patch of blue sky shined down on him and the pup pulled himself from the snow into it.

The pup paused for a moment, took several steps from the tree, and paused again. He looked around him in the vast silence which seemed incredibly large for such a small, and lonely, pup.

"Mom?" he called out. The only answer he received was the vast silence and occasional whistle of wind that had picked up.

"Mom?" the voice died in the snow. The pup closed his eyes and began to sob, still muttering the same word. "Mom?"


	4. Nava's wisdom

**Chapter 4**

Balto trotted easily along the red bank. The bank was washed away at an angle to the river; small dry rivulets ran down the bank into the stream which frothed brown silt filled water. The water rolled over the rocks in the riverbed like a ripped blanket; then collided with a hidden rock and sent foam spewing high into the air. The sound of the river roared past Balto with a scary frightfulness.

Balto looked across the river towards the bare mountaintops which were hidden among the grey overcast sky. The clouds had grown thick and heavy with rain. They sagged as they moved over the mountain into the valley; underneath them rain poured in a grey mist that grew thicker and grayer as the storm moved closer to Balto.

Balto cringed at the coming rain. He knew that it would be freezing cold and thick enough to soak his fur within seconds. And his fur had just gotten dry.

It had been three days since Balto had left Nome, and each of those days had been cold and rainy; especially today. Earlier in the day, just after waking up, Balto slipped into the water of a clear stream that was flowing down from the mountain while trying to get a drink. It wasn't deep or fast moving, but just the way Balto fell in soaked him from head to toe, chest to tail. Balto spent the rest of the day running at a fast trot, trying to get his body heat to evaporate the water off his back. But the off and on rain, and the wind and overcast sky prevented it from happening. Then, just several hours ago, the sun came out. And with that and Balto's running; he was able to evaporate the water. But the clouds had once again covered the sky and a storm began to blow in over the mountains.

Balto brow lowered over his eyes and knew that he had to find shelter if he wanted to stay dry. Across the river on a low flood plane, several trees had fallen over, their roots still filled with rocks from when that had fallen over most likely from a spring flood. Even though they had fallen over, and ninety percent of their roots had been ripped from the ground, they still held bright green needles to their limbs.

Under the roots, next to the trunk, would be a perfect place to stop and wait out a storm. But there were two problems, the first being the frothing river between Balto and the cover, The second being that at any moment the river could flood and Balto would be swept away from under those tree.

Balto looked to his left in hopes of finding a fallen tree. But all the trees in there were real thin, and the few that were big enough were still standing. Balto set his nose up the river, he would half to find a shelter soon enough.

He made his way up around several more bends in the river that moved from one side of the valley to the other. Balto was amazed after another mile that the rain still hadn't caught up to him, maybe he could outrun it. But he knew that there was no outrunning a storm, and he would soon have to find a shelter. And almost at the exact same moment he thought that, he found it.

A tree had been undermined by spring floodwaters and fell down the sloped bank into the river making a sweeper. The top quarter of the tree was lost in the water, along with most of the branches, which were still green. The base of the tree had folded down over a three foot embankment; the roots of the tree still hung on the top edge of the bank, making a hollow area under the embankment that would be perfect to hide under.

It was a big risk to take hiding under the base of a sweeper. If the water rose and god a good grip of the tree it could rip it out of the ground and crush Balto before he would know that it was happening. But the rain began to pat the top of his skull and it seemed like a risk worth taking.

Balto quickly trotted over to the base of the tree and looked under it. The crack between the tree and the embankment was just the right size for him. But he found that he wasn't the only one who had taken refuge under the tree at one point. Underneath the tree some creature had hollowed the red sand out creating a bowl shape bed directly under the tree.

Balto sniffed at the entrance of the shelter for any recent smell that would indicate that something was living in there recently. Balto could smell something, but it had long since been there that the smell had disappeared to a degree. Balto stuck his head deeper into the entrance of the shelter and could clearly see the deep claw marks of a creature in the sides of the hole. But the creature was gone and Balto stepped into the shelter as the raindrops pounded on his back. He curled himself nicely into the bowl shaped hole.

As soon as Balto set his chin on his paws his eye lids set down over his eyes. He wasn't completely sure if he had fallen asleep, and if he did he didn't know how long it had been when he smelled it.

It was a musty odor, the same kind of smell as wet dog and ozone mixed in with pine tar. It came on a slight drift, a slight change, in the wind underneath the tree. Balto's eyes came open with the speed of a normal blink. He looked around for the source of the smell, hoping that it was nearby, and could see nothing but the falling raindrops, with the occasional one rolling around the log and falling on him.

Balto knew that if he laid her for to much longer he would never be able to pick up the sent. But going out in the rain would mean he would get wet, and cold. But he had to do something.

Balto stood as best he could under the tree, his legs bent every so slightly and his back against the rough bark of the tree. He moved to the edge of the cover of the tree and for the first time could hear the roar of the river.

The river had risen ten feet and moved around the outside curve of the river like the curve of a racetrack, grabbing the tree and shaking it loose from the ground.

Balto stepped out from under the tree and hopped to the top of the grassy bank, next to the saluting roots. Within moments of turning around and looking back at the river the roots of the tree tore loose and the tree was drug into the river.

Balto hardly passed a wince at the thought that he could have just died. He simply turned, realizing that he could have died, and continued on to find the mysterious source of the smell.

Balto continued up the river through the driving rain that fell so hard and thick that Balto was instantly soaked. But he continued on. Even though the smell had been only passing, and he couldn't smell it now, he still searched for it. Then the smell suddenly wafted through his nose and his ears perked for the chance at finding a sound.

Balto stood on the edge of the river, his head raised with his ears high above his head, searching for the smell, sound, or sight. Balto began to wonder if something was watching him. The eye's of something running up and down his body, sizing him up for a fight.

Balto stepped up the bank and into the low brush of the trees. He began to walk quieter. Walking on the pads of his feet across the sticks and leaves of the previous fall he quieted his breath and movements of fur across the bark of the tree. It was tough moving through the trees that were in every different angle to his body, but possible.

Balto stepped over a log and could see he was standing on a trail. The trail lead from the river off towards the mountain in some unseen direction. The trail was muddy and well worn, with prints of his quarry securely fashioned to the mud of the trail.

Balto swallowed, knowing that he hadn't come this far to give up now.

He fallowed the trail as it weaved through the trees, past a small babbling brook that the trail began to walk parallel to. The trail then fell into a switchback formation as it began to move up the hill. Balto took a moment to relish how easy the walking was on this trail. Everywhere Balto had been in the past few days had been hard walking, but this was so easy Balto could hardly tell that he was going uphill. Except for the trees' that lowered down behind him.

The trail moved across a treeless area of the mountain. Balto walked out into the clearing along the trail and could see how the river snaked below him. He sniffed at the flowers and grass along the edge of the trail then fell back into tree cover.

The trail then came back across the hill and met up with the creek as it dropped from a hanging ledge in the mountain. The ledge was nearly a half mile wide and stretched the entire length of the mountain.

Balto came up on the ledge and fallowed the water of the brook as it headed for it's source.

Balto walked through thick tree foliage on the relatively flat ledge in the mountain; the brook making it's way over rocks on his right when Balto noticed something up ahead through the tree.

The sun came down through the trees into a small clearing next to the creek where a large flat stone lay. On the stone Balto could distinctly make out the sight of something, a creature, a wolf.

"Nava." Balto whispered so quietly that it was barley audible to himself.

"Hello Balto." came Nava's old, wise, cracked voice.

Balto didn't realize that his jaw hung open from the act. Balto had been nearly a hundred feet from Nava when he whispered to himself. But it was Nava's way to know about something before it was going to happen, he thought.

Balto picked up the past and splashed through the stream and came up behind Nava. A sudden growl on Balto's right made him stop in his tracks. He turned to see Niju laying at the base of a tree not more then ten feet from Balto.

"Silence yourself Niju." Nava called back behind him as if he had had to say it at least ten times a day and had grown tired of it over the many days of saying it.

Niju's growl died and he lay his head down on his paws, with one eye still watching Balto.

"Don't mind him; he still holds anger for you." Nava still lay with his back to Balto.

"I can see." Niju let a small growl slightly at Balto's remark, but let it die.

"I know why you have come Balto. You have come in search of your past." Nava began to rise, his old bones and muscles creaking and aching as he moved. He trembled as he began to turn to face Balto.

"Yes, how did you kno-"

Balto cut himself off when he could see into Nava's eyes. His eye's had become old and clouded over with a pure white, so thick that Balto couldn't see where he was looking. Nava's sides had been brought in to the point that Balto was very fearful that Nava would fall over dead with hunger at any moment.

"You are shocked by my aging? Yes I have grown blind with age. And my health has diminished greatly."

"Yes, I would have never pictured you in such …"

Nava motioned to lay down. "Come and rest with an old wolf."

Balto did.

"Niju has been taking care of me since I lost my eyesight" Nava turned and looked at Niju who growled as if embarrassed. "And he's been doing quite a good job."

"Then why are you so thin?"

"I don't take all that he gives me. He is young and needs more food then I. … Balto my time is growing to an end, I will not see another winter. Aniu has told me that you were coming to find answers from me."

"Yes, Aniu is-"

"Your mother, yes I know of this. I knew of this before your daughter came to save my clan. Now your daughters."

"Why didn't you tell me of it then?"

"It was irrelevant to the problems at hand."

Nava looked again at Niju. Niju rose to his feet, shook some sticks and pine needles from his fur and walked off through the trees. Balto looked at Nava and wondered why he wanted to be alone with him.

"Now listen Balto," Nava paused. "I wish I could tell you everything you need to know of Aniu so you can end your quest here. But alas I cannot."

Balto felt as though he were about to be let down.

"But I will tell you what I know of her."

Balto's faith was restored.

"I know that she is of spirit. She has long been of sprit. And would often help me in times of need. She helped you to bring your daughter to save my clan."

"Where was she from?"

Nava paused, closing his eyes and raising his head to look at the sky he continued. "She was from the north. The far north. Many days' travel to the valley in the north."

"What valley?"

"I cannot tell you what valley. Or even begin to describe where it resides. But I do know that when you see it. You will know that it is the valley."

Balto quietly locked that bit of information into his skull to remember later. Then an obvious question popped into his head. "How do you know where she lived? Did you know her?"

"She was the leader of the clan to the far north. We clan leaders would meet to discuss the season of hunting. I met her the first year that I took over as clan leader. It was also her first year."

Balto thought about it for a moment. "Did you ever meet my father?"

"No I never knew your father."

Balto eyed Nava. He had answered the question without hesitation or pause to think like he had been.

"You will have to discover who your father was on your own."

Once again it was fast and rehearsed. Balto got very curious, was he trying to hide something from him? But what could it be? "Why do you hide things?"

Nava eyed Balto deep white eyes. "I hide nothing. If you have come here to accuse me of such things I-"

"I didn't mean it that way. I'm very sorry."

The mood around Nava relaxed. "I understand."

Balto really didn't know what else to ask Nava, but how to get there. "Do you know how to find the remnants of my mother's clan?"

"You have to go north, farther north then you have ever been. And when you have gone so far north that you think you will never get there, you will be there."

A long silence "Is there anything else I should know?"

"There is nothing else I can tell you. You must find everything else on your own." Nava closed his eyes as if in deep thought. "But I must ask you something."

"Yes?"

"Why are you searching? Why have you left your family and friends to search for something so unimportant?"

Balto stood and thought of a good answer. "Because it's important to me."

Nava closed his eyes and shook his head in solid agreement.

Balto didn't know exactly what else there was to say or do. He bowed his head in respect, knowing that Nava couldn't see him, and turned. He walked off of the rock and through the stream before Nava spoke up.

"Balto?"

Balto stopped on the other side of the stream turned and looked Nava full on in the face.

"Do you recognize an old, wolf?"

Balto looked at Nava and wondered if it was just a question of weather or not he looked old. Balto looked at him and figured that the truth would be the best. "No."

Nava closed his eyes and lowered his head as if he were about to cry. He then turned around and laid the same way that Balto had found him and remained quit.

Balto turned and continued down the hill to further his quest for the past.


	5. Boris?

**Chapter 5 **

The valley stretched nearly a mile wide, with a frozen river flowing down around the many islands and rocks that stuck out from the engulfing ice of the river. The south side of the river was a mass of rocks reaching to the height of the mountains; no trees grew here on the south side because of the lack of light during the winter. On the north side of the river, where the sun was more exposed, trees over a hundred years old grew in thick clusters. The trees along the outer ring of the cluster - which was uphill of the river-, had been battered and beaten by the winds, but their lives protected the trees in the center.

The grey pup walked directly through the center of the thick group of trees, looking up at the snow covered branches that leaned over him ominously. It had been three weeks since he had lost his mother, and the entire time he had been without food; except some frozen berries and grass that had made it through the fall. His skin was now becoming loose from his small puppyish body, especially around his face where his skull could be clearly visible through his fur. His fur had lost the puppyish fuzz of youth, and had been replaced by rougher, less clean, coat.

The pup didn't know exactly where he was in location to where he had lost his mother. He had searched long and hard for her in the field, but was unable to find any trace that she even existed. He kept thinking that this was nothing more than a bad dream, and at any moment he would wake up with her in a warm den. He would close his eyes and hope that when he opened them his mother would be right there; but every time he would only see the bleakness of what lay in front of him. He would have questioned what had happened to her, if he wasn't fighting for his own life now.

The pup winded his way through the thick underbrush that poked and scraped at him. Every now and then he would loose his temper and bight at one of the sticks that had hit him in the nose or eye, but it did little to satisfy his anger. All he could do was keep trudging on through the dark brush that was as dark as night, thinking about his empty belly and cold fur.

The pup looked up through the trees and could see one of them leaning over him, laughing at him, snickering, chuckling at his insignificance in such a large oblique land. He turned to the south where the river was. He had to get away from the dark laughing trees and out into the open.

He came through the brush and a stick slid across his face cutting his nose ever so slightly, and making him bight at the stick in anger. Tears welled up in his eyes, blurring everything around him. He felt angry at his tears for coming and making everything indistinct.

After blinking nearly a hundred times to clear his vision he could see the river before him. It stretched nearly three quarters of a mile wide, and every inch of it frozen solid. Across it thirteen pressure ridges had been pushed up from the expanding ice. But it wasn't all this that interested him, it was the island in the exact center of the river. Covered with trees and snow and as flat as the river ice, it might be the perfect spot to find some food.

He thought back to the few feeble attempts at getting a rabbit that sat silent in the snow. It had been nothing more then him standing up and the rabbit running off. He so desperately wished that he could have been with his parents at that moment, that they could have showed him how to stalk and kill.

He stepped down onto the river ice and ran out across to the first pressure ridge a hundred yards out. Bounding with puppyish stride he came to a stop at the base of the point. He crawled on his belly up to the edge of the ridge, and could see the next pressure ridge. He then bound over the rim and onto the next one.

He continued this pattern until he reached the ridge before the low island. He scanned the island with his tiny eyes just barely peeking over the ridgeline. He couldn't see any large animals on the shore, but he could see the tiny rabbit trails moving in under the brush of the island.

He stood up and pushed himself up over the last pressure ridge and to the island. He stopped when he felt the land beneath him rise slightly and the first tree pass by him on his right. He stopped and looked around him while he caught his breath.

Rabbit trails spider-webbed all around him and through the brush, finally ending at small holes in the ground where the rabbits lived. The brush here was less thick then on the other side of the river; large animals had obviously been walking around this island knocking twigs and sticks off of the trees. The pup was pleased that no more sticks were going to dig into his nose and sides. But still it did nothing for his hunger.

"**Honk!**"

The pups ear's swiveled towards the brush where several rabbit trails vanished under their sickly, dry, branches. He sat in silence waiting for something else to happen. Nearly a minute passed before it happened again.

"**Honk!**"

This time the 'honk', which he had no idea what type of animal it might come from, brought him to his feet. He looked off through the brush trying to imagine just what the animal might look like. Was it ten feet tall, like a moose? Was it as small as a rabbit or a mouse? Or was it an animal that he might have never seen or herd before?

"**Honk!**"

With the third one he began to step forward through the snow, his feet cautiously parting the snow between his toes; but his naïve puppyish mind not taking into effect the thousands of other ways that a prey could have herd, smelled, or even seen him.

He slid into the brush along the rabbit trails, ducking down and crawling through the trail where the larger animals hadn't stomped it all down, and the rabbits would hide from the larger predators, like him.

He traveled fifty feet through the undergrowth before it opened up into what he first thought was a clearing. It stretched nearly fifty feet square, and absolutely flat, with tall reeds, or grass, growing up around the fringes of the clearing.

He lay quietly listening for another one of the strange sounds. Meanwhile he scanned the reeds for any sign of movement, he couldn't see any.

"**Honk!**"

The young pup's eyes darted to an unusually thick area of reeds on this side of the clearing to him. He rose to his feet and moved sidelong towards the thick reeds. Halfway to the reeds he dropped down into a stealth mode, his feet moved ever so slowly, his eyes looking down at where he was about to step before he did, but never moving his head as he did.

He closed in on the reeds, and before he knew it he was walking right through them, pushing them aside with his nose and feet. A figure began to take form directly in front of him, a long necked figure with a bell shaped body. That's when he realized that the creature was looking straight at him, not even afraid to be standing in his presence. The pup then knew that he was as close as he was ever going to get, it was now or never.

He bolted forward through the reeds and out into the open. A bird, it was a bird of some sorts running away from him across the field. The pup put on the afterburners and quickly began to close the distance between him and the bird, then it happened.

He hardly even knew that it happened when it happened. The only thing that made him realize he was in trouble was the intense cold and inability to breath. It took him a moment to realize where he was, he was underwater.

He threw his paws out and swished the water underneath him, but his eyes were closed and he had no idea which was up, or down. He opened them, but the water was so cold that he had to immediately close them. How long had he been underwater: seconds, minutes, hours, days? He didn't know, it felt all the same to him.

Everything began to fade away into darkness, even his own struggling sounds. Then suddenly he could breathe and feel his back against something hard, the ground, no it wasn't the ground, it was the ice that he didn't know was there. He struggled to open his eyes and look around, everything was blurred at first but he could make out a tree and some animal next to him. Then he blinked several times clearing the water from his eyes, and could see the animal clearly above him.

"sorry." the pup said through his coughing, he had hardly even known that he was coughing water up until that moment. "sorry." his puppyish voice force through his coughing again

"Oh it's no problem." the bird replied with a heavy accent that the pup would wonder about later. "I heard, saw, and smelled you coming from miles off. You know you have to be careful when you spend the winter here through horrible colds. Many hungry animals will find you."

The pup began to come to his feet, rolling over on his side and standing up with his back to the bird. "I want to fank you. Now I need to go."

"Go? Go where?"

The pup began to move across the ice back the way he had come. "Awway." the w dragged out.

"Away, you mean away. And where do you have to go away to?" the bird suddenly grew tense. "Are your parents around?"

"No." the pup continued, head hung low and tail tucked between his legs.

"What do you mean no? You can't be out here alone." he then grew quite as the pup molded into the brush at the edge of the pond. "Can you?" he whispered

He then remembered how skinny the pup had looked when he pulled him up out of the water. His fur sunk up against his body, and his face sinking into his skull.

"Wait!" The bird commanded, taking to a waddling run after the pup. "Wait for me!"

The pup lay under the brush as the bird caught up with him. He lay freezing cold, still wet from the water. "What ew you want?"

"Its do, and I want to know if there's anything I can do to. You know, help you?"

"I doon't tink there is anything you can do." he looked into the birds eyes to show that he could say do. "or me."

The bird looked at him with a wing put under his chin. "It's don't, think, and for."

The pup glared at him. "what do you want." the word 'do' coming of his tongue much slower than any other word.

"I want to try and help you any way I can. I want to try and help you find your parents. Or at least a place where you will be welcomed."

"I es I ould ooze some help. What's or name?"

"My name." the goose threw his wing to his chest. "My name is Boris. Now what is your name?"

The pup turned his head away. "I don't ave a name." the word don't coming unreasonably slow.

"Well I can't just call you gray pup; I'll call you, boy-chic."

The pup's ears perked up. "Huts that mean?"

Boris shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not quite sure, but my mother would always call us, 'her little boy-chic's.'"

The pup shook his head, then paused. "Do you ave any food?"

Boris pushed his wing out to the small pup. We'll try and find you something. We'll try and find you something."


	6. Aleu

**Chapter 6**

Balto made his way lazily up the steep hill with tired feet and a hypnotized mind. He hardly even knew where he was, his mind lost in his memories and the hardships of the past. he crested the ridge, below him a blue cove stretched to his left where a glacial river flowed in. on his right, across the bay, a low stepping bald topped mountain rose from a clear field directly in front of him, and from the bay itself.

Balto's eyes suddenly shot open with shock, he could hardly realize that he was here. It had been such a long and boring journey around the hundred mile long bay, but in reality he had traveled nearly six hundred miles, counting all the miniature bays and spots where he had to leave the shore and travel over land due to large sea cliffs. It had been nearly six months from his last visit here. At that time the sea ice had hardened and it was nothing more than a quick ramble across the ice to this same spot. It was Jenna's idea to come out and see just how her baby was adjusting to the wilds. Balto tried to make her realize that she would be ok, but she wouldn't hear of it, she had to see it for herself.

They hadn't stayed long before Balto could feel a change in the temperature and knew that they had to get back across the ice to Nome before they would be trapped and forced to make - what at the time he thought - was a hundred mile trek around.

Balto looked across the water towards the opposite shore. From this altitude he could clearly see the opposite bank, golden brown in the sun, just twelve short miles away. He almost felt angry. He had spent the last week making his way six hundred miles around a bay, when he could see the shore he stood on a week earlier from here.

He brushed the tinge of anger off with a huff from his nose, then turned back to his daughter's home. Beautiful, bright, sunny, a perfect home, He could hardly wait to see his daughter.

Balto swaggered his tail as he strolled down the hill through the large thick pines to the sea. He came to a stop on a rock that fell off three feet into the ocean. There he looked across the bay trying to see if any sentinels were out looking for him. But alas there was none.

Balto didn't like coming into any wolf's territory without first being contacted by the sentinels. They were the ones who would decide whether or not he was a threat or a friend, and would either chase him off or invite him in. and that was who Balto wanted to find now. If he didn't find them and continued on to the den he would most likely be attacked, maybe even killed, because he got to close.

Balto cringed slightly, they were nowhere in sight, he would have to continue on without finding them and hope that he wouldn't be killed.

He edged his way around the bay, splashing through the spider webbed river and up onto the grassy field. Here he slowed up and moved with deliberate action, stopping every few moment to smell the wind and see if anyone was coming to greet him. Nothing. Why weren't they coming out to find him? Then the thought hit him, they had moved on.

"no." he whispered to himself.

He then bound forward, forgetting everything about entering a wolf's territory without first finding the sentinels. Along the edge of the grass parallel with the sandy beach that led to slime covered black rocks he ran, head held high, feet reaching out in front of him; he hopped that they hadn't moved.

Balto came to the base of the mountain where the trail leading up to the step in the mountain started. Here he stopped with a breathless heave of his chest and looked up the trail that moved up over rocks and exposed roots through trees that leaned one way or another. They cast dark shadows on the brush that hugged thick and sharp to the trees feet. The only way he was going to find out was to make his way up through the tunnel of trees, rocks, and a possible attack.

His breathing slowed, and he began to carefully place his feet as he walked up the trail. Every step he took he stopped and surveyed his surroundings: looking for any change in a shadow, or sounds of breaking sticks, rustling grass, or even the unmistakable whistle of someone breathing. More careful steps up rocks and over roots, his eyes fixed on the forest around him.

Then he stopped cold, his ears perked to the uphill side, and his eyes scanning the forest. All he could see was the thick tangled brush crossing each other until it was like staring at a single mat in front of him. He then unfocused his eyes to better see movement and differences in color.

With this added technique he was able to see through the brush with relative ease. Then he saw it, a paw not more then eight feet up hill from him and pointed forward. The rest of the creature belonging to the paw was already flying through the air towards him with open jaws.

There was no moving for Balto, he was trapped. The flash of fur came through the thick brush  and though Balto expected it  the wolf didn't bight down on him. But instead hit Balto's shoulder with his paws, sending him rolling down through the brush on the lower side of the trail.

Balto rolled three times through the brush, becoming so tangled in the sharp stick and dead vines that his feet became tangled and stuck up against his body. Then he slammed into the trunk of a large tree, face down so he couldn't see what was coming for him, and he couldn't get untangled. He struggled against the brush wrapped around him to get a paw free, the he herd it.

A smattering of laughter fallowed by. "Oh ah that's good."

Balto managed to turn his head around enough to see who had attacked him. It was sumac, standing above him on the trail with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his beady little eyes closed tight with laughter.

"Oh Balto, you are just too funny." Sumac said heehawing with his squeaky toy laughter.

"Ha ha ha," Balto laughed sarcastically. "Now can you help me?"

"Sure Balto."

Sumac stepped sideways of the trail, it was a steep hill and he didn't want to have the same thing happen to him. Edging his way the dozen or so feet down the hill to Balto he stopped, stepping directly on Balto's back.

"Ok, huh, I'll just chew these off." Sumac said reaching down with his teeth, taking a large vine and pulling up away from Balto as hard as he could.

"Why didn't any sentinels come for me? Did you see me?"

Sumac stopped pulling on the twisting vines for a moment. "I saw you coming when you topped the hill. I knew who you were, and just wanted to play a little trick on you."

"That was a very funny joke sumac, ha ha ha. You know before I leave I'm going to get you back."

"No you wont." sumac said with a mouthful of vines and sticks, that he then spit out next to Balto.

Within a moment Balto's shoulders were free, and he was able to stand and snake his way out of the rest of the vines. He then eyed sumac, a silent message that he was going to get him back.

"Is my daughter still here sumac? Everything looks so quiet."

"Yah, Aleu is still here, because, a, well, I'll let you find out on your own."

Balto could feel the fur on the back of his neck shoot up, then fall. What did he mean by 'I'll let you find out on your own.' whatever it was he meant, he would find out shortly.

Sumac made it to the trail first, and began to continue up the trial, Balto fallowed shortly after.

The trail made its way around the hill, until flattening out through some thick trees. Sumac walked in front of Balto, keeping him from seeing exactly where the trail went.

But as they made they're way through the trees, Balto began to feel eyes on his shoulders. He looked around through the dark trees and began to see wolves watching him. They came through the forest and eyed him from behind trees and rocks, then as Balto and sumac moved on, they would fallow behind, keeping an eye on him. Balto couldn't recognize any of the wolves, of course it was incredibly dark in the trees, but then, why were they staring at him?

Balto didn't see sumac come to a stop, and almost rear ended him. Balto moved off to sumac's right side where he stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

"Aleu. I found a trespasser."

Balto looked ahead where three rocks jettisoned four feet out of the ground at an angle. In between the three rocks a dark hole vanished into the ground.

Balto let his head wander, and found that the wolves around them were coming in closer to get a better look at this intruder. Most of them he didn't recognize, they were all different faces, faces he had never seen. He began to feel a bit like an animal in a cage with everyone closing in to get a better look at him.

"Coming."

He could hear his sweet daughter voice from the den. A moment later her head came forth from the den and she blinked her eye's rapidly to get used to the brighter light.

"Papa!" she yelled out, running over and nuzzling up against her father.

"Hey there." Balto replied with a smile and a muffled chuckle. Aleu stepped back, and Balto looked over his shoulder to see if the few wolves that had fallowed him in were still watching. They had all dismissed the threat and returned to they're resting places. "The clan looks a little short, where is everyone?"

"They're fallowing the caribou to the north. They should return in a few months."

"So why are you here? Shouldn't you be out leading the clan?"

Aleu turned away embarrassed by something. She looked back at the den, then turned and looked at Balto. "Papa, I want you to meet someone."

Balto peered past Aleu to the den; this is what sumac had been talking about. But what?

"Come on, you can come out." Aleu called into the den.

A moment later six grey and black and brown bundles of fur exploded from the den, all rushing to they're mother's feet and staring up at Balto with odd, head turning, curiosity. Balto lowered his head down to a pup's nose. The pup reached out with his nose and sniffed at the stranger they had never seen before.

"Are these yours?" Balto said raising his head. The pups whispered to one another when Balto talked.

"Yes, they are mine." she turned and looked back at the den where a large black wolf now stood. "And his." she paused, letting Balto eye the wolf he had never seen over. "His name is shale."

"Shale." Balto remembered the name from somewhere, the last time he was here. At that time he was a newcomer to the pack, a silent setback type that didn't want anything to do with the pack. Balto noticed Aleu looking at the mysterious wolf every now and then; he could tell that she had some attraction towards him.

"Shale, could you come over here?" Aleu called over her shoulder.

Shale slowly rose off his haunches and walked over, the pups at Aleu's feet moving over to the feet of they're father as he sat down next to her.

"I would like you to meet my father, Balto."

Balto only replied with a smile.

"Very good to meet you." shale responded, his voice timid, as if he were afraid to talk to the father of his mate.

Aleu could see that neither of them were going to take up conversation and stroll around talking to one another like she thought they were, so instead she moved on to the pups.

"Darlings," she lowered her head down to the pups' eye level. "I want you to meet you uncle Balto."

The pups all looked towards the stranger; they're faces small and curious. Finally the smallest pup, that was closest to his mother, spoke up. "Can we attack him?" he said with a very sinful tone.

"No." Balto protested comically.

Aleu smiled. "Yes, you may."

With that the six grey and brown pups bolted forward and leapt at they're uncles face and shoulders, soon overpowering him and pushing him backwards until his tender belly was exposed to the malicious teething jaws. They're bights had no real affect on him because the pups had hardly a tooth in their mouth, but the nonstop gumming of his face and ears made him laugh hysterically.

"Stop, stop, no, stop. Ahhh. That tickles … stop." but his words did little to stop the rampaging pups.

Aleu watched her father be attacked by her kin, and remembered back on the times when she was young and would do the same thing. After nearly thirty seconds of watching Balto in pure torture she turned to her mate and whispered. "Maybe you should go and save him?"

He quietly nodded, and stepped forward to take up a commanding place. "Ok, come on, get off of your uncle … Balto." he had almost forgot the name.

"Ah" they all said at the same time. One little pup stepped forward. "Cant we just chew on him for a few more minutes."

"no." they're father said sternly. "Now come on. You have many uncles who are willing to play with you, and I'm sure that this one wants to talk to your mother for a while."

"okay." it was settled. The pups rose off of their uncle Balto and began to walk off through the forest towards their other uncles, with their father fallowing close behind. Balto rolled over and came to a sitting position in front of his daughter. "They're cute when they're that young."

"Yea." Aleu agreed, her eyes watching the pups bound off.

Balto looked at shale walking off, and could feel that he was somehow, tight. "Hey Aleu," he whispered back to her. "He seems kinda, strict."

Aleu sighed. "He doesn't try to be, he wants to be a good father, and sometimes he just tries to hard. But he always accepts my help when he's in the wrong."

Balto laughed. "Of course, the males always in the wrong when a females around."

Aleu smiled, but didn't think the joke was too funny. "So papa, why are you here? I know you didn't just stop by for a visit, otherwise you would have brought mom"

"I should bring her here to see her grand kids. She would just love to see them."

"Yeah, she would." Aleu agreed, her mind trailing off, thinking of what her mother would say when her father told her about the pups.

"So, why are you out here?"

"Oh," Balto turned his head away, embarrassed. But then he realized that she was family, and he could tell her anything. "I'm on a quest for my parents."

Aleu didn't seem too shocked by her father's quest. "Really, did you lose them?" she began to chuckle.

Balto lowered his head. "That's not really funny." Balto said with great remorse.

"Oh come on papa. You shouldn't take what someone says so seriously."

"I shouldn't." he whispered to himself, thinking about what he did to Kodi.

"What did you say papa."

"Nothing. I was just wondering if I could spend the night here."

"Of course, you're always welcome here. Now walk with me?"

Both of them turned back away from the den, towards the other wolves that were being infested with pups, and began walking, shoulder to shoulder.

"So papa, where are you going?"

"North."

"North? How far north?"

Balto sighed. "Far enough north that I think I will never get there, then, I will be there."

"There are a lot of people up there who don't like wolves, also a lot of wolves who won't take friendly to you. Because of … well, you know."

"I know. I know." Balto said shaking his head. "But don't worry about your rough old dad, I'll be just fine."

"You know I will always care about you. I just want you to be careful."

"I will be."

A silent moment passed. "So papa, you need to tell me all about Nome. Tell me everything that has happened there."

"Yeah, I should tell you about everything that has happened there."

Balto and Aleu then strolled all over her territory. She showed her father the bones from a previous winters kill, and how it went down. They drank from the river, and Balto told Aleu about flying in an airplane, and how free and unbound he felt up there. Aleu asked about her brothers and sisters, and Balto told her everything he knew about her brothers and sister; several of them had moved away and Balto hadn't seen them since. Aleu didn't seem too heartbroken. Aleu talked about the pups and shale; Balto tried to keep the questions about her mate down to a minimum, he didn't want to appear nosy. After several hours, and the approach of sunset, they both made they're way back to the den site under the orange hue of the sunset, arriving back at the den just as the sun vanished from the land.

Balto and Aleu stood in front of the den. Balto looked around at the few shadowed figures moving around, trying to get away from the rambunctious pups that still plagued them like mosquitoes.

"I guess I should find myself a place to sleep."

"Well," Aleu smiled through the dark. "Take you pick."

Balto smiled and went along with it. He strolled out away from her towards some stunted trees, then towards some large pine trees, before returning and stopping not more then twelve feet away from her, under the stunted trees. "This spot looks good."

Aleu smiled and laughed. "Well you better stay on top of it, or else someone might take it."

Balto smiled and sat down.

Aleu then peered off towards her mate and the six pups who were still roughhousing with their uncles. "Shale, it's time for bed."

Shale bowed his head slightly, receiving and understanding what she meant and wanted. He turned to the pups who bound over the three uncles who seemed beat, and did nothing but lay on the ground letting the pups chew at them; the others had had enough earlier and had walked off to rest in the brush around the den.

"Listen up, it's time for bed."

"but were not tired." one of the pups, who sat on his uncles head, said as he dropped down onto the dirt and began making his way to his father. All the other pups left their chewing's to rally at they're father's feet.

Shale lowered his head down to the pup who had given him lip. "Well the truth is I'm not putting you to bed. I'm putting everyone else to bed because they're tired, and they need they're rest. I'm just putting you someplace so you won't keep them up."

"ok." came the simple answer.

"Then come on, lets go, time for bed." the pups moved with a steady walk towards the den, but their walk was slow and forced, the obvious sign of tired pups.

Shale kept them moving towards the den, then took post next to the entrance to count them, as soon as the last one was accounted for he looked to Aleu who had been watching the whole scene from her original sitting spot. She turned back to her father.

"Good night papa."

She then went to the den, nuzzled her mate, and crawled inside for the night. As soon as Aleu was inside shale fallowed suit.

Balto was then left alone in the fading light. He lay down at the spot he had picked out, and watched as the other wolves who had sought shelter from the pups slowly emerged one by one from the nearby bushes and shrubs and find themselves a sleeping spot out in front of the den. Balto lay down, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

A sudden rustle through the brush sent Balto's ears twisting in all directions, something was moving around nearby. It could have been nothing more then a squirrel out on a late night forage for his food cache, or it could've been some huge animal coming into the den site with a taste for pups on his mind.

Balto opened his eyes. The moon had come out in full force, shining down through the trees in a splotchy paint thrown manner. Up through the trees stars could be seen peeking through every crack and spot where they could.

The rustle, behind him, big and loud, yet quiet, like a giant trying to sneak up on a mouse.

He raised his head up off of his paws to look around. A shadow moved diagnoly behind him through the brush on its way towards him. Balto watched it for a moment, trying to figure out if the owner of the shadow was someone to be worried about, but the figure came through the brush behind him and momentarly looked at Balto. It was A large wolf who eyed him through the dark, then huffed through his nose and continued on up past the den, and up through the trees on an invisible trail.

A moment later another wolf moved the same way through the clearing out in front of the den. He looked over at Balto, but seemed to preoccupied with something else to deal with him. Up past the den, and then fell into the same trail that the previouse wolf had fallowed.

Balto didn't quite know what was going on, and so laid his head back down on his paws; it was none of his business. The he herd the call. A wolf call from the top of the hill rung out beautifully, casting through the land a sence of serenity and piece.

With the call Balto was brought to his feet, his ears cocked up the hill to better catch all of the sound, and his eyes closed so he could relish it. After the long blissful howl came to a stop, Balto was walking the same trail up the hill that the previouse two wolves had taken.

The trail winded back and forth through the moonlit trees, and like the trail below, roots and rocks stuck out at every angle, all forbidding him from going any further, but he fought on. Climbing and crawling, jumping and tiptoeing through the minefield of a worn trail.

Another howl came down from directly above him, like an angle harking a soft melody to guide him.

The trail then turned directly up hill to the treeless spot at the very top. Balto stopped when the trail came to the edge of the clearing, and he looked straight up towards the moon, where a dozen wolves were outlined within its silver lining. Ten of them stood behind two who were conspicuously set apart from the others. Then one of the two raised his head to the sky and let out a howl that sent shiveres down Balto's back.

He didn't know if he should go up and join them. Would it be the right thing to do, or would it not?

After a minute of watching the specticle before him, he cautiously made his way up the hill.

He tried not to make a specticle of himself as he eased up to the crowd of wolves, casully stopping and listening to the howls come freely, then continuing on ever closer. Soon he eased himself up to the group of wolves; they were all facing a certain direction, north. He set himself near the back to watch, and to try and understand just what this was all about.

He watched one of the wolves in front howl every few minutes, between those times he would sit with his ears cocked, listening. Balto soon realized just who it was, it was shale, and next to him was aleu. Of course, the leaders of the pack were always in front, first to go, last to leave.

The more Balto watched, the more he began to realize that this was some sort of meeting, but with what, a nonexistent phantom somewhere out there. Shale would send a message, but there didn't seem to be any coming back, was he waiting for someone to answer, sending the same message each time in an effort to get a response.

Finally Balto's curiosity got the better of him and he turned to the faceless wolf next to him.

"What's going on?"

"Ssshhh, you need to be quiet. Were trying to listen." The very brawn speaking wolf shot back in a whisper.

"To what?"

"the clan to the north is relaying us news of the rest of our clan who are hunting south of the human village … right now they're saying the hunting is good." the wolf paused, something interesting was happening.

Balto tried to listen, but no matter how much he tried he couldn't hear another howl besides the ones shale was sending out. Boy, Balto sure whished that he could understand more of the wolf language. Most wolves were taught the language when they were young, but Balto had been separated from them before he could learn any of it. Though, every now and then he cound understand somethings, but not enough to know exactly what the other clans were saying. But here he couldn't even hear the other clan to the north.

"I can't hear anything."

"You have to close your eyes and feel it more than you hear it."

The consept seemed stupid to Balto, but then stupider ideas made greater sence after you try them.

He closed his eyes and tried to feel the howling in his body.

The wolf next to Balto looked over to see Balto with tightly clenched eyes and flaring nostrils, an absolutely rediculus look.

"Listen!" the wolf almost brought his voice more than a whisper. "Don't be an idiot about it; just let your soul listen."

Balto did, he tried to listen more through his chest, and it worked. He could hear the faint whisper of something in the distance calling and talking.

Aleu had heard the wolf interupt they're communion with the distant part of they're pack. She was frustrated and thre a discusted look over her shoulder. She could see the wolf talking to another wolf, then as she peered at him for a while she began to realize that it was no wolf, it was her father. She turned to her mate and whispered something into his ear. A moment later he let out a series of howls, long, short, and of all different levels.

As soon as he finished every wolf there turned their head to Balto, almost glaring at him. But then in unison all the wolvs turned their heads back to the north, another message.

Balto didn't even hear what the wolves to the north were saying, and even if he did he wouldn't have understood it. But all at once the wolves let out a cheer and a round of howls filled the night, all different and changing constantly; something great must have happened, or was happeneing.

Within moments after the last howls the group broke up, so fast that Balto was left by himself momentarily. He looked down the hill where the wolves had gone, hoping to see his daughter, but they all looked the same as they went into the trees.

Balto then went back down the hill, only getting lost once, and found all the wolves laying down in they're respectable place. Balto found his clear, and lay down to sleep.

The early morning light crept into the forest like an unexpected, yet welcomed, friend. Balto slowly opened his eyes, rolling and blinking them over and over againt to get them use to the low light. He was soon sitting upright yawning and stretching, watching the den entrance for a sign of his daughter. He wanted to speak with her before he left.

Several quiet minutes passed, the only sounds being the snoring, grunting, whispering sounds of the other wolves as they stired with the early morning light. Then someone began to stir within the den, dust and whispering pouring from the hole like water.

Soon his daughters face appeared from the entrance. She looked around as if making sure that nothing dangerous was near, then she stood up and walked out.

Balto stood and strolled over. He still wondered what had been said about him to the other clans that night.

"How'd you sleep papa?"

"Oh not bad. A little uncomfortable. But it was the best since I left."

Aleu smiled. "So were you waiting for me?"

"Yea, I wanted to ask about last night. What was that?"

"Oh." Aleu turned her head away as if she were about to brush it off. "I just had shale ask the clans to the north to let you by without harm. All you have to do is mention your name and they'll let you by."

"Oh, well, thanks for the help, but I didn't need it. I've made my way through tuff territory before, and I'm sure I could do it again."

"But I insisted. You should be safe right up to the human village on the north sea."

Balto thought about it. "Why only to the village?"

"Because beyond that I don't know what's out there."

A long moment of silence passed before Balto stood up. "Well, I guess I should get going. I want to get back before the winter closes in, and I'm stuck."

Balto began to walk away from Aleu towards the trail, when she called back.

"Wait." Balto turned; she still sat where Balto had left her. "Why are you going?"

Balto thought about it for a moment, the looked her in the eye. "Because I have to find out what happened to me, so long ago."

Aleu bowed her head in understanding. Balto then turned, a bit curious about her way, and continued on to find his past.


	7. A Lesson

**Chapter 7 **

The small fluffy white rabbit with coal black eyes and black tipped ears bound from his den located beneath a snow heavy spruce limb. He stopped and looked around for any danger that might have been skulking in the nearby woods. He twitched his ears, flared his nostrils, and slowly rotated his head around, all in an effort to seek out and find the animals that wanted him.

After finding nothing nearby he skipped twelve feet out and down the hard packed trail that he had made, leading from his den out around through the low muggy forest and spider webbing from there to the hundreds of places he could find grasses. And that was his mission now. If he wasn't so hungry he would have kept himself sleeping inside his den, but nothing waits for hunger.

Here he stopped, and once again did the little check for any dangers that might be nearby. Again nothing seemed out of place, and he sprung another dozen feet down the trail. Here he stopped, and looked around again. It was this action that kept him alive. That let him come home after his excursions for food through the woods where the scary hungry creatures lurked and prowled for his soft white flesh. But it was still a risk, and he needed to take it.

After going nearly a hundred yards in this manner he stopped short of his twelve foot mark. Food was nearby, something he hadn't found earlier in the year, and it beckoned him to eat.

The brown dead grass shoots stuck out of the snow to the rabbits left, away from the safety and cover of the low brush that was just on his right. It was a dangerous place for him to try and get a good meal because of the openness of it. If he wasn't so hungry he would have just passed it by for the safer feeding places with less food up the trail, but the prospect of a full belly entreated him to move from safety

He left the hard pack of his trail for the soft virgin snow, and grassy delicacy, being even more careful than before, only going two feet before checking for the dangers of the forest around him. It took twice as long for him to move the twenty feet for the grass as it took for him to move the hundred yards to this spot.

Once he reached the grass shoots he stopped. He didn't start eating right away, but did a final check of the forest. It took him a full ten minutes to do the check around him before he motioned to start eating. He opened his mouth with his long incisors, pushed his head out for the nearest shoot of grass, cut it off, and began chewing.

Even though he had taken every effort to spot the dangers around him, he still hadn't seen the hungry animal that slowly moved in upon him.

With a sudden explosion into the air the grey pup aimed his jaws down onto the rabbit. All he wanted was to get a piece of it, his head, a leg, a mouthful of fur. But as his jaws snapped shut, his mouth was filled with the ice cold snow of loss.

He came to his feet and looked for the fleeting animal. The only sign of where the rabbit had gone was the nearby brush with a swinging branch and floating snow around it.

He sat down; it was no use to stand and waste energy over the loss of his meal. The pup had grown thin, so thin that he had trouble keeping warm at night, or for that matter, at anytime.

His belly growled, frustrated that more food got away. It was also the signal that it was time to return to Uncle Boris, empty stomached once again.

Boris lay half asleep under the smooth angled cliff in a nest of dry grass. He was on the losing end of sleep when he noticed the small pup moving through the brush and trees towards him. The pup wasn't actually that small anymore, he was much larger. Though it was the way of the wilds for the young to grow fast, while their minds remained slightly smaller than their body size; it was a survival mechanism a thousand years in the making.

Boris stood and bolted from his nest as the young pup came into the open in front of the cliff. "Did ya get anything?"

The grey pup raised his head and looked sourly at Boris. Shouldn't his empty jaws be enough of an answer?

Boris came closer and wrapped a wing around his young friend. "Listen boy chick, I know it's hard, but you just need to-"

Boris cut himself off when the grey pup gave a very disdainful glare, and moved out from under Boris's wing. The grey pup moved away from Boris over to a large tree. At the base of the tree a ring had been scraped out in the snow, this was where the grey pup slept; at least he did before he lost so much weight that he couldn't keep warm any longer.

He stepped into the ring, spun around three times, and laid down. He faced back towards Boris, his eyes glued coldly on him standing there, watching.

Boris seemed very agitated, not the kind of agitation that comes with anger or frustration, but the sort of agitation that says he was sympathetic. Boris then began to waddle closer, and stopped just a few feet in front of the grey pup.

"If you keep at it like this you're going to starve"

The grey pup was on his feet in an instant. "What is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to starve me to death? Huh! How are you keeping so fat and plump in such a cold killer climate?" The grey pup had been taught to speak without the stuttering and nonsensical speech in the past few weeks by Boris. Boris had told him that it was essential to speak well, for if you didn't, you couldn't get out what you really wanted to say "I'm going to do what I had started to do in the first place, and eat!" he began to growl

"No no no" Boris said jumping backwards, trying to turn, and tripping all over himself till he lay on his back with his wings out in front of him like a bulldozer blocking the hurt that was coming. The grey pup closed in over his trembling, frightened body, with a wide mouth and saliva covered teeth.

"Let me finish, let me finish, let me finish." Boris pleaded from the ground. But he didn't receive an answer, so he started. "I mean your going to starve if you keep hunting like this, but I can help, if you let me?"

The attack didn't come like he thought it would, so he slowly opened a crack between his wings to see the grey pup sitting, thinking, about the offer. He finally sighed before going on

"Ok, how do I keep from going hungry?"

Boris rolled over and came to his feet. "First, you have to tell me about your last hunt, and why it was unsuccessful."

The grey pup sighed, and began. "Well I was moving through the forest like you taught me, being sneaky and quiet. Then I saw a rabbit bounding down this trail, and I fallowed him, like you said to. Soon he stopped and slowly made his way out into a clearing spot. I snuck up onto him. Got close enough, and jumped-"

"Wait, what? You jumped. Why did you jump?"

The grey pup threw back slightly, unsettled about what Boris had said. "Yeah, I did exactly what you told me to do. You said 'you need to jump to the attack.'"

"No no no. that was an expression of what furry you should have when you attack, but oh well. Tell me what the rabbit did after you missed."

"The rabbit bolted into some low brush before I even got back on my feet."

"So," Boris said taking up a pacing pose in front of the pup with a single feather raised up. "You need to stop thinking that you're going to catch a rabbit in the open. It will never happen. They're to fast, and agile. You need to catch him by using your surroundings. Such as when the rabbit went into the brush, he had to slow. That is when you attack, because he's moving so slow through the brush, but your bigger and can just push right through it."

"So, use my surroundings to catch what I want?"

"Exactly." Boris said coming up next to the grey pup and throwing a wing over his shoulder, he was perfect height for Boris to do this. "Now why don't you go out and catch yourself some dinner?"

The pup solemnly shook his head yes, and moved out from under Boris's wing to the forest.

After walking away from the overhang, and into the forest, he brought himself into a more stealthy mode: moving his feet carefully through the snow, listening to every sound around him, and being so slow and careful that a rabbit sitting three feet in front of him wouldn't have seen him coming until his jaws were around the his neck.

But even though the pup moved with such deliberate action, a rabbit had spotted him without being spotted himself. The rabbit remained frozen underneath a fallen rotten stump as the grey pup grew closer.

It wasn't until the grey pup was within three feet that the rabbit bolted across an eight foot clearing and into some brush. He was on it in an instant, remaining as close as he could, but losing ground fast. The rabbit hit the brush, and soon after the pup hit the brush. The pup tripped and rolled, tangling himself and got sharp sticks in his side. But he was up in an instant, he didn't care how much pain he had to go through, he was going to get that rabbit.

He looked for the rabbit under the smashed brush beneath him, he didn't see him. Then out of the corner of his eye he could see the rabbit coming out of the brush at another spot, going barely a click over a fast walk for the pup.

He bolted for it again, jumping over the crushed brush and coming down on the flat snow. The rabbit made for a run across another larger clearing, but halfway across he changed his mind and turned left towards some more low brush. This time the pup was right on his tail, no way he was going to let this one go.

The rabbit hit the brush, then the pup with an open mouth. The first thing the pup felt in his mouth as he rolled was something kicking, then he herd it screaming. The rabbit. He thrashed his head about, trying to beat the animal to death against, something. Then the pup lost it. Where had it gone?

He came to his feet, covered with snow, and looked desperately for the rabbit. Where was it? Then he saw it, heaving at his feet for the last bit of life, still kicking, and trying to get away.

The pup felt so excited that he grabbed the rabbit with his teeth and threw it high into the air. It spun three times, all the while spraying blood all around, and dying. When it hit the ground again, the pup dove in, and began to eat.

Boris sat awake and waited for his friends return. The night was beginning to fall, and it was beginning to get cold. Where was the stupid pup? He could freeze to death out here in an instant. Where was he?

Boris then saw something moving through the trees out in front of him, something about his size and grey.

"Boy chick!" Boris said jumping to his feet and running out through the forest towards the pup. "Did you get any …" Boris could see that there was nothing within his jaws, and he hung his head gravely.

"Oh boy chick. It's ok. Tomorrow we'll try again."

"Yes we will." the pup said raising his head with a blood lined smile "because it worked."

The two jumped and cheered yelling out at each other with praises and commendations for one another. Finally after they calmed down a little the young pup looked at what he now thought of at his father, but he called, Uncle Boris.

"I'm kind of tired; I want to have energy to do that again tomorrow. So I'm going to go to sleep." The grey pup turned, and walked away to his sleeping spot where he turned three times, and went to sleep. Boris though it odd for him to just go to sleep, but a full belly really tuckers you out.

Boris smiled pleasantly, he felt that he was teaching the pup well, but he still couldn't teach the pup everything he needed to know, he couldn't teach the pup the language of the wolf, and he couldn't provide the brotherhood that the wolves had for one another. He needed to get the pup into a pack.


	8. All for food

**Chapter 8 **

"What is that delectable smell?" Balto said aloud to himself as he raised his nose to the air and sniffed three times in a hundred and eighty degree around the front of his body. It was the oily smell of fish just after they had died, and just before they had begun to rot. The perfect time.

The smell of fish made him want to run out and find them. It had been weeks since he had eaten a full meal, and the meals he had been eating were nothing more than scraps left by other animals and the occasional rabbit. But the smell was too much to be something natural, it had to be something man made.

Even though he felt that he could have eaten a whole moose by himself, he wasn't stupid enough to do something, well, stupid.

He dropped down from the high bank, over a clatter of loose rocks, down onto the edge of the fifty foot wide river that he had been fallowing since it was a wee trickle on a mountain pass. The river itself had been flowing lazily about through the low tree covered hills on its way to a human village. Balto knew about the human village from when he crossed over the pass in the early morning and could see the smoke from the village near the ocean. From the top of the pass the village looked like a day's trip away, but by now Balto knew that it was much further than a day's trip.

Another breeze caught the fishy smell and sent it wafting through Balto's nose.

"It must be from downriver." Balto confirmed with himself using the slight twinge of grass nearby to discern the winds direction.

He moved very carefully down the rocky bank, being cautiouse not to flip any of the rocks and make them clack or crock against one another. But even through his carefulness he still made them crack against one another every now and then. He had to become even quieter. So he dropped down ankle deep into the water and moved with even more deliberation.

Under trees that had been knocked down by the spring floods and around brush that had been collected on them, or on other protruding figures, he soon came to the source of the smell. A fish wheel humming and squeaking as it brought fish up out of the river.

Balto had never spent much time studying these human contraptions, but from the cover of an overhanging bank, he had time to figure out how they worked, and how he could get fish out of it. The fish wheel was a very simple, yet complex contraption. First a box, roughly eight by eight, is constructed with an axle hole and a ramp for accepting fish on one side. This is set on two beams that stretch over the fastest part of the river. From there, smaller beams are nailed onto the end and connect together at the tope in a A frame fashion with another axle hole in the cross piece. The axle that stretches between the A frame and the box was a round piece that was squared through the middle. This middle held four baskets facing different directions on the beam, but all the same way; all specifically designed to let the river spin them and to pick up fish and drop them into the box. Simple, yet complex.

Balto didn't see any humans, or smell them, or hear them. But he knew that the humans wouldn't let a fishy prize like this go unguarded for to very long.

He peeked his head out from under the cover of the overhanging bank, pushing his head through the many hanging roots and raising himself up to see over the bank where the humans would be. A clearing had been made out of the forest, and fire pits, and stacked wood showed that humans had been here recently. But they weren't here now.

Balto eased his tension and moved out from under the bank. He moved along the edge of the rocky river, no longer being careful about the sounds he made, until he came to the human path that led down the bank and into the water. Here he sat and judged how far it was to the box, and how deep the water might be.

The water didn't look that deep, maybe shoulder deep on him, but nothing he couldn't handle.

"Ok." he came to his feet. "Nothing to lose."

He strolled into the water as easily as he would through a field. But the water began to rise and wash the loose gravely bottom out from under his feet. He stumbled and fought for footing in the knee deep water. Then he backed up before he fell and got washed away.

He looked back at the water to study it better. He wasn't going to get out to the fish at this rate, he had to do something different.

"The less time I spend in the water, the less likely I'm going to wash away." He felt stupid to say it aloud. But since silence had been his constant companion for so long, he felt that he needed to hear his voice, any voice.

He then leapt forward into the water like a rabbit through the grass; falling almost out of sight then surging up out of the water only to vanish again.

He came along the box on the upside of the river. Here the water was much deeper than he thought it was going to be, nearly a full foot deeper than he thought; and at times his feet almost washed out and he thought was going to be sucked under the box. Though subconsciously he knew that the water didn't flow underneath the box, but around.

"How do the humans get up on this and empty them?"

The box was completely smooth, except for the hair-thin lines where one board touched the other. Then he found it around the edge of the box right under the wheel. It was a ladder. Well sort of. They were round wood pieces that had been flattened on one side and nailed into the side of the box.

Balto studied these. It would be possible for him to climb them, but it would be a tricky matter with the wheel spinning nearby and threatening to knock him to the water. How did those humans do it without ending up in the water? Then Balto remembered that humans were different than dogs, or wolves, and could do things like this without a thought to it.

Balto carefully moved down to the first rung of the ladder, being careful not to lose his balance and go floating under the spinning baskets. It wouldn't kill him, but it would sure scare him.

The water around the spinning baskets was much deeper then any other part of the river, and Balto found himself on his back paws with his front paws on the ladder of the box with the water around his chest.

With a heave of his back legs he brought them up out of the water and managed to hook a hold on the very bottom rung, while his front feet scrambled up towards the top, fumbling over the crude rungs. Then as his entire body stretched out, with his hind legs still on the first rung, his paws hooked over the top. With his mighty shoulder strength, and his kicking back paws, he pulled his body over the top and landed atop his prize. His many prizes.

He was so overjoyed and eager to eat that his belly expanded for the dozen or so fish he was about to eat. He dreamed of there taste and texture, and was overcome by there overpowering smell. But then why dream, they were right here for eating.

He was just about to bend his head down to take a bight out of the biggest one when something caught his ear. It was the very diminutive sound from far off. The move of a rock on the bank crashing with a clack into another rock.

This brought his head up scanning downriver to see what made the sound. Hopefully it was nothing more than some erosion, or a rock that slipped under it's own force of gravity. He kept his eyes down the river. Then his worst fear came true

A man appeared from around the lower bend in the river. Balto ducked his head down, but still managed to get a good look at the man. He was native looking with tan wrinkly skin, and grey hair that flowed off his head to turn wiry and dirty. He wore a caribou shirt and pants with a light looking backpack across his shoulders. On his left side there was another strap in addition to the pack strap. A rifle.

Balto didn't know what to do. He felt weak inside like he was going to throw up. Every moment that he let this person come closer he was endangering himself even more. He had to get a second look.

He flattened his ears and snuck to the corner of the fish box where he raised his head enough to bring his eyes above the edge. It was nothing more than another flashing glance, but he learned much more.

A second man was fallowing behind the first. He was much younger then the first man, and held much more gear. He had black hair and an identical outfit as the first, but much newer and with less miles on them. Especially the white caribou moccasins that looked to be no more then a day old. He wore a pack of the same size as the old man with a rifle strap across his left shoulder. In his right hand he held a rope that departed to the bow and stern of an empty wooden canoe.

"It's for the fish." Balto said thinking of the canoe from his crouched stance. They were coming for the fish. Well of course they were coming for the fish; they were on the verge of rotting.

Balto kept low, not wanting to let a good meal go, but yet wanting to go to save his fur from the floor of one of their homes, or the ruff on their coats.

They came within earshot and he could hear them talking in some language that sounded like mumblings of the white mans. Then one of them broke out into a full belly laugh fallowed by the other with his lesser laugh.

Balto could feel his heart beating like a wild beast in his chest. He felt caged, boxed within the confines of the eight by eight box. He searched for relief from this frustrated obstructed state of mind he fell into. Where was the relief?

He peeked his head above the edge of the box again. The two humans were at the spot where the trail led into the water. The older man had walked up the bank and dropped his pack. The younger man was busy pulling the canoe up onto shore and tying the rope around a willow to hold it. He had already removed his pack and it now sat at the bow of the boat, yet he still refused to take off his rifle; as did the old man.

"Come on, set them down." Balto pleaded with himself, or maybe some invisible force that might be of help to him. But whatever it was that he was talking to wasn't going to help.

Balto tipped his head up over the edge of the box again. Now the two humans were wading out towards the fish wheel with their rifles over their shoulders.

"No." Balto whispered again. He had to do something.

Then a plan hit him like they always did at the exact moment before disaster. It was a very simple plan that would save him, and allow him to dine well on one of these plump fish.

The men had no problem walking through the water; they were both plenty used to the rush of water around their feet and hips, and balanced well as they walked. The younger of the two men was in front, and he reached out to the fish box when he reached it. The sound from the box was hard and packed. He then turned to his older companion and said something, but the older man seemed too preoccupied with the water around him to respond, or even give expression. But when he got close enough he slammed on the wood and received the same hard thud. He then smiled to the younger man and pointed his finger around the back of the fish wheel, indicating where the ladder was. The young man moved around the back to it.

Balto had calmed down and the biggest worry in his mind was stealing away with a fish that might be too small. He scanned quickly and found what looked to be the biggest and plumpest fish of them all. He reached down and seized the fish in his teeth, raising his head back to allow it to slip further into his teeth.

The young man peeped over the edge to see a wolf the likes he had never seen. He stared helplessly, fixed in a self induced disbelief of what he was seeing. At any moment he could have shot him. But the wolf was so bold, and cunning enough to climb into the fish, that the man couldn't do it.

Balto saw the man, but didn't seem worried anymore. He knew that the man wouldn't shoot from there, he would possibly end up missing, and most likely end up falling back into the water.

With the fish in mouth, Balto turned downstream, bolted to the edge of the box, and with a flying leap out over the water, crashed into the water, skimmed his already running feet across the bottom, and came up swimming. He dared not look back and see the two humans. At any moment they might have started shooting, and he surly would be dead if he waited around to see what they were going to do.

The two native men watched him. The younger one with his arms up over the edge of the of the fish box, the old man around the side.

Balto kept in the ice cold river until he rounded the bend that he saw the humans come around. The other bank was low and brush, providing him with cover while he ate his well kept meal.

He crawled up out of the water and set his fish down just within cover, while he inspected how safe he was from the humans who hadn't fired a shot. After watching the river carefully he returned to his meal and ate heartily.

After three days of hard long travel from the fish wheel without any food, Balto's belly was craving some time to eat and sleep within the small town. It was late in the afternoon, but the sun still remained incredibly high. The hills gradually fell away, along with the trees, except near the river, and a more flat plane area began to open up.

Soon a town appeared up on the right side of the river, and Balto pulled up out of the cover of the river to head into town. He was still nearly a mile from the town, but this gave him plenty of time to overlook the town.

It was a set of nearly thirty houses set up in the middle of nowhere with a church steeple rising high above everything else in the middle. White little whispers from cooking fires rose up out of the many chimneys and blew steadily south up over Balto's head; he had been smelling this for a day already, and wondered when he was going to find this elusive town. All the buildings were naturally gray from the old unpolished, unsanded wood, except for the church, which still held its white coat of paint.

Balto raised his nose to the air to see if he could sample some of the butchers throwings from half a mile, but he didn't catch any. Maybe there was no butcher, but there had to be with this many people. No god loving town like this would be without someone to cut up the many animals that the people would bring in.

A quarter mile from the town, Balto noticed on his right, across the river through the trees, a set of a dozen tents. They weren't ordinary white man tents; they were the natural kind of tents made of willow branch frames with sewed skins thrown over the tops. From these small wisps of smoke came from a hole left at the very top by the makers of the tents who sat in front of they're humble homes. They were clothed in skins and had long black hair that covered they're copper faces. Four young kids who only wore a string with a bit of cloth to cover themselves, ran around one of the tents, each of them holding some sticks and hollering at the top of their lungs.

The town closed in so suddenly on Balto that he found himself staring down the main street towards the church. He could clearly make out what the nearest buildings were. A general store rested on the corner to his right with shovels, lamps, and picks all lined up out front on the wooden walkway that ran down either side of the street towards the church. On his left a large antenna came up out from behind the building. Although Balto couldn't read what was scribed across the top of the door, he knew that the building had the telegraph, and the telegraph operator inside. But none of this mattered to Balto. He wanted to find the butchers shop. It was probably further inside town so roaming bears would feel less like walking between the many houses filled with people for their scant meal.

People were scarce about these wooden walkways. He could see a few faces in windows, hiding behind the drapes, and casting a wondrous eye.

Balto strolled down the middle of the street like he would in Nome, casually looking for the butchers and a warm side street, maybe with a blanket or bed that had been thrown out he could curl up in.

Balto ambled on, veering left and right every so slightly so he could get a better look at the buildings to tell what they were. He found some place that sold mainly clothes, mostly fine church cloths. A three sided metal working shop with an anvil, and a forge. There may have been a greasy, chunky, blacksmith in the back, but the inside of the building was to dark to tell. Across the street was a carpenter's three sided building with two coat hangers made of twisted driftwood out front. This building was much brighter and he could see the eyes of a young bewildered carpenter inside.

It was then that Balto could feel the many eyes upon up. They were staring, frightened, and angry, shocked, and dazed. Many eyes everywhere. Why were they staring at him?

Then it hit him like a sentence to death for littering. He felt like a complete idiot with his head on the chopping block. In the woods he had kept very careful about humans, tried to stay away from them, but the guarantee of a meal and soft place to sleep brought his guard down. That and he was so used to just walking into Nome. but this wasn't Nome. They didn't see him for Balto, the one who had been put in every newspaper across the north. They saw him for his look, his wolfish look. And any wolf dumb enough to just simply stroll down the main street must be mad.

Balto picked up the pace to a steady trot. His eyes flashing left and right at the many people in the windows watching him. He passed by an alley with five scrawny dogs who had been talking with one another, and turned with shock to see him just strolling by. They weren't quick to attack and just watched.

As Balto watched their eyes vanish behind the corner of the building they surged out into the street to get a better look. It would only be a moment before they figured out to attack.

Suddenly a gunshot zinged over his head sending Balto to the snow. He turned to see who had shot. The carpenter stood out in the middle of the street in his leather apron with a lever action, pumping another round before raising it to his shoulder and eyeing Balto up. The black smith came running with a bolt action rifle from his grimy building.

Balto was up and running as the second shot hit where he had been laying.

The dogs were in on it to. The initial shock was gone and all five of them were pushing every muscle to catch up to the frightened, mad, wolf.

Balto turned down one of the alleys to get away from the rifles. He could probably outrun the dogs, and even if he couldn't, he could fight them, but that was a last resort.

He turned left, then right, then left, then left, then right. Every moment the dogs were getting closer. At one moment Balto thought he could feel their breath on the bottom of his paws as he kicked them up behind him. He didn't want to look, because he knew that they were catching on him, but maybe they had given up.

He turned his head ever so slightly and looked out of the corner of his eye. They were close enough to be chewing on his tail.

Where was the edge of town? He had to find the edge of town. His only hope would be to lead them out of town so they would chicken out and give up with yells of "That'll teach ya."

Balto turned down an alley, trying to keep going in a single direction. But this alley came to a dead end at a ten foot high wooden fence. Balto didn't even slow, maybe there was a board that would break out if he hit it right?

The dogs stopped since their quarry had nowhere to go, and spread out across the mouth of the alley.

Balto closed his eyes, tucked his head down, and went for it. And just Balto's luck, he hit the hardest board in the fence, then he hit the ground. For a moment he didn't move, the stunning realization that he was still in bad territory with a sore shoulder.

He then began to move. Fortunately he hit the fence with his shoulder instead of his head. He rose up. The dogs were laughing.

"That stupid wolf must be insane?"

"Yea, couldn't see the board for the fence."

"Let's rip his mangy animal fur off and drag it down the street."

It was then that that part of Balto's mind where a plan was devised in the hardest and most stressful of times, came alive. If they wanted an animal, they would get one. He turned abruptly on them, lowering himself down and spreading his legs out under his body. A blood curdling growl came from his throat and echoed through his exposed teeth. His teeth being the main part of the overall image of fear with the addition of his flattened ears and all seeing eyes that pierced deep and hard into the dogs.

The dogs all stopped short and looked at the cornered beast that was willing to take on all five of them.

"You go get him Nater." on dog turned and said to another.

"I don't want to get whatever he has."

"What, are you chickening out?"

"No! … Why don't you go get him?"

"I don't want to get killed."

Balto wanted to smile deeply at how he could scare these dogs, but kept to his growling. But it was time to add the Cherie to the cake. He jumped a few feet forward, and the dogs jumped several feet back.

"Come on and fight me." Balto egged on under his growl.

The dogs all stared at him. Then one ran off and vanished around the corner of the building. The main dog which stood directly in front of Balto began to back away.

"Y … you just leave this town or there'll be trouble." He said in a timid tone, then turned and bolted away from the alley. The others fallowed soon behind in a flurry of mud and kicked up grass.

Balto was then left alone, and he calmly dropped his act. Standing up straight he reexamined the fence. There was no way to get around the fence, or over, or under. He had to find another way out of town.

Balto creped up the alley to the edge of the side street. He stopped at the edge of the building and peeked around the edges of either side. No one was in sight. He calmly turned right and made his way along the edge of the building to the next alley where he found another equally tall fence. But this one had a hole near the bottom of it and Balto managed to squeeze out and into the open.

As he got farther away from town he could see that the entire town was this way. A fence in between every alley for the marauding bears, or wolves, that would come in and try to find some food, much like Nome.

Balto didn't stop moving away from the town on his way north. Only the occasional look back to see how far he had gone.


	9. Last Contact

**Chapter 9**

Balto ran at full speed away from the town, and didn't stop until his feet ached and it was beginning to get to dark for safe travel at his speed. He slowed to a gentle travel speed while his legs recovered from the outpour of blood that still weighed heavy in them. His eyes also recovered from the loss of blood, and soon he could see quite clearly in the darkened environment.

He continued along the fringe of the frothing ocean, occasionally looking towards the pastel sky that silently roared into sunset. Soon it would be to dark for travel and Balto had been looking for a good night sleep and a full meal. The idea of a full meal was out of the picture. But maybe he could find a nice mossy spot out of the wind.

Balto turned up a dry creek bed that was void of trees and full of rocks that made its way up around a large hill that he could get a better look at where he had to go, and where he had been.

In ten short minutes he rounded the windy top that whipped his fur and battered his ears about. Dirt was kicked up and blew into his eyes, causing him to look away from the north towards the south. The grass under his paws was short and sharp, and stabbed at the bottoms of his paws like a thousand needles, maybe remains left over from grazing herds.

Behind the way he had come, he could see all the details of the past week of travel. The mountains pass he had crossed over still had snow on it and was painted orange by the distant sun. Below that the endless hills he had come through were dark and void of life. While the town on the edge of the sea boomed with the many lights and sounds of a good time.

Balto was sure that the many dogs and people in town were spreading their stories about the mad wolf that had come into town in search of flesh and blood. They would probably be great stories of heroism and daring, as they fought the red eyed devil with their bare hands, or paws or teeth.

Balto felt disgusted with such a sick town. A bunch of lazy dogs and people on the edge of the wilds whose only way to get kicks and make their lives worth living is by ganging up on an innocent wolf and overpowering him, Then running around spreading the stories of their heroism and brass.

For the first time since Balto had left the safety of Nome, he felt alone. He had never felt this afraid and alone since he was a young pup. How much he wished at that exact moment, that he could see Jenna's loving face and slim figure. How much he wanted to see Kodi smile as he pulled the mail team up to the post office.

Then his mind flashed back to the last thing he had said to kodi. The evil hateful things that he had thrown unyieldingly towards him in front of his friends. He must have been so embarrassed, and so angry? Balto really began to see himself as the bad guy, and wished that he could do something to make it up to Kodi. But everything that came to his mind seemed so cheap and made up.

Then Balto's curiosity peaked. Where were the wolves that Aleu's mate had sent a message about his passing to? He hadn't seen any caribou, but he had herd them and seen their numerous tracks about the riverbeds. But he hadn't seen any of the wolves? Maybe they had seen him, and knew about his passing, and just didn't want to bother him on his quest. But Balto kind of wanted to spend a night with part of his daughters pack for the comfort.

The day slipped away, and darkness reined through, dotted with the thousands of tiny stars that were splayed about the heavens above. The wind cut deep into Balto's back, and he moved off the south side of the hill where the wind wasn't as bad. He moved along, searching for some hidden place where he could sleep. But a soft windless place eluded him.

Finally after nearly a half hour of searching in twilight for the perfect spot to sleep, he gave up. Plopping down on the grass that stabbed, then broke, then stabbed again into his belly, he let his head down onto his paws, and went to sleep.

The sun began to filter over the silhouetted mountains in long streaks of orange that went flying across the sky to dunk into the ocean. The ocean was calm and flat like a lake in the early morning, waiting for someone to disturb it and send it into utter chaos.

Balto slept peacefully and deep, grunting every now and then as another piece of sharp grass itched its way through his fur and stabbed him unmercifully.

He slept so hard that he didn't notice the two figures watching him from some distance. They were just shadows on the horizon, and had been so still and silent for so long that they were just another object on the land. They sat together and quietly whispered to one another. Plotting there approach and what they would do. They were skinny and lanky, big in bones, small in muscle mass. The muscle and fat on their frames was too little to be of any healthy state. And their bones were most likely weak and fragile. Their coats were a light gray with black tipped guard hairs. The stronger bolder one had thick guard hairs around his neck that formed a mane. The other meeker ones right front food was white from the knee down. But other then to two small differences they looked to be brothers, and were.

After some moment of deliberation over what to do, they both rose from their sitting position and moved around the north side of the hill so they could come in sideways to the wind and surprise the intruder.

They moved quickly along over the sharp grass that crackled under there feet. Their bodies moving like fluid, with a distinct overpowering purpose. They tried to run fast, they were moving right through the upwind side of the interloper.

Around the edge of the hill they came and raised their heads in surprise to see that the intruder was still sleeping. The path that they had taken would passed directly through the wind that would be blowing over the hill to him. It was a stupid move to go upwind of the intruder. But they were hopping that the intruder would have smelled them and moved on. Why didn't he smell them?

They both walked side by side towards the trespasser. He still slept soundly. And as they got within hearing distance they stopped and looked at each other curiously. He was snoring. Any animal that was smart wouldn't ever snore. It was a common wolf thing to learn not to snore: to keep from spooking game that got close to your den, or to keep yourself hidden from enemies. Especially when alone.

For a moment the two wolves stood side by side trying to comprehend such a stranger. What was he doing here? Why was he so careless as to sleep in the open, and snore? Was it a trap!

They both looked around. But everything as far as they could see was free and clear. There was no sign of danger. And if another pack of wolves jumped out from behind the hill on the other side and ran for attack. They could both take flight back towards their pack.

Finally the bolder brother on the right had enough of this stupid searching and went forward. The other one fallowed, hop skipping once to catch up to his brother. They both then grew a sinister look about them. Their fur ruffled up and they bared their fangs for when the invader woke up.

The bolder of the two brothers bolted forward with his head held low when he reached within ten feet of his quarry. He expected the intruder to jump to his feet and fight. But when his teeth sunk into the stray wolfs shoulder and he didn't wake until he flew over him in a flip. The brother knew that this wolf had a weakness about him that he would be able to beat.

Balto was suddenly awoken when he felt teeth crunching down onto his shoulder.

"Ahhh." Balto yelled as whatever had bit him flipped up over him and pulled him to his feet. Within just a second Balto lunged at the creature with shock and anger. He missed with a click of his teeth and received a sudden blow in the side by another wolf.

Balto rolled down the hill. The grass stabbing his side and making him bark in pain.

The two wolves then both jumped on him and bit and chewed and pulled until they were sure that he wasn't going to fight back much.

"Who are you?" the bolder wolf commanded, standing with his full weight on Balto's back.

Balto struggled to breath, let alone answer from his disadvantaged position with his paws stuck under his chest and grass stabbing him everywhere. Blood came out of his mouth and shoulder and another scratch above his eye. But he managed to squeak the word out finally.

"Balto."

"What!" the wolf commanded again, unable to hear him. "What did you say?"

Balto struggled to breath, and the breathing he could do was raspy and hoarse.

"Balto."

"What are you doing here? Whose pack are you from? Are you here to steal our food?" The wolf asked impatiently

Balto couldn't answer all the questions with so much weight on his back. But he tried and only got minor squeaks of words. Finally the wolf realized that Balto couldn't talk with his weight on him.

"Are you going to fight or run anymore?"

"No." Balto answered.

The bolder brother looked to his other brother for advice. But received nothing but a curious stare. The same stare that he was giving away.

He moved his feet off of Balto's back and stepped to the side. He awaited another attack, but the attack didn't come as Balto came to his feet and dusted himself off. His breathing was squeaky and labored still, and blood still oozed from his mouth, but he could breath a whole lot better than when he was pinned on his back.

"What are your names?" Balto innocently asked.

"That's none of your business." the bolder wolf snapped. "If you need to know our names we will tell you, but not until you need to know."

Balto bowed his head in understanding. He then coughed, and blood came out of his mouth from the cut that he had received on the inside from his own teeth. He coughed more from blood trickling down the back of his throat, and the two wolves looked on with their scowls.

"Start walking." the brash one ordered.

"Where to?"

"Stop asking questions!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "It is none of your business!"

Balto was not taken aback by the wolves yelling. He kept his cool in the face of the snarling beast more than the town or the fish box. "But, then how am I supposed to know which way to walk?"

The brash wolf looked at the other for an answer. The other wolf didn't quite know either and shrugged. Balto had noticed that the other wolf wasn't much of a talker or fighter, he simply watched and answered in shrugs and looks.

"We should take him back to the pack. Zane will know what to do with him." the meeker one answered after a moment of silent deliberation between him and the loud one.

"Yeah." the bold one responded callously. "Zane will treat you well." he finished with a grin, then turned towards the north. "Get marching." he ordered, and Balto took up a spot in front of the two and began walking straight north.

The walk was long, and seemed unnecessary to Balto. He didn't feel scared with the wolves, but more annoyed at the waste of his precious time. The only thing that he could see that was to his advantage, was the fact that he was still heading north.

Balto was amazed. He was amazed more at himself than anything else, amazed that he was not fearful of the wolves like he was the humans. He let this out with a smile across his face that he made sure was kept hidden from the two wolves. They already seemed agitated enough; they didn't need anything else to get their nerves flowing.

Over the hills they traveled, coming up into a giant spectacle of daylight atop the hills, before being disappointed that all there was, was another hill to cross over. Down through the gullies they traveled, casually padding through the water at the base before rising up the other side.

They traveled for some many hours into the afternoon. Balto felt good about his traveling speed, he was making great time, probably just a little less than when he would on his own. A few times he looked back at the wolves to see how they were taking the trip. They seemed to be holding their own, but Balto could sense that they were having trouble, somehow. Maybe it was they way that they were walking? It seemed they were tired and dogging it the whole way, dragging their feet and trying incredibly to look like they weren't tired or weak.

They stopped briefly at the top of another rise. Balto looked around, trying to figure out what they had stopped for. He looked at his traveling mates who were fixated on the opposite hill, their eyes deep and thin, seeing everything that they possibly could. Suddenly the brash wolf seized his head to the sky in a howl that started high then ended low. It was quick and fast, but had a lot of meaning. As soon as the howl stopped, another took up across the valley.

There, wolves peppered about the top of the hillside around a hold in the ground that served as a den came to their feet. More of them started out howling, raising their muzzles to the sky and answering Balto's traveling companions in their own way.

"Move ahead." the bolder one said giving him a stiff push that caught Balto off guard. He glared back at the wolf, but the wolf just motioned forward with his nose.

They moved swiftly down the hill, the two wolves now pushing him forward without touching him, wanting to get to the majority of the pack as soon as possible. They pushed fast through the creek bottom and at a fast grinding pace up the hill.

They reached the edge of the pack and slowed. The pack began to close around Balto with wary eyes that studied Balto up and down. They closed right in on Balto, unafraid at all, coming right up and sniffing at his face. Balto kept as still as possible, he didn't want to set them off and send all of them into a tremendous rage where he would be the one that they were all fighting. He moved slow and deliberate, only moving his head back and forth to size up the numbers. There must have been over twenty of them there.

"This is the intruder we caught sleeping on our turf." the brash wolf stated proudly

"Intruder!" it was shouted out, and everyone stared venomously at him. A few growls rumbled in the crowd around him and the tension grew so thick it was hard to breath.

"Someone get Zane?"

One of the wolves up the hill from Balto turned and bolted towards the den. He entered the den momentarily, before returning topside and standing nearby for Zane.

He was a skinny giant coming from the small hole in the ground. His shoulders must have been to Balto's ears, and covered with such a thick and luscious black coat with a white stripe around his eyes and head. He positively gleamed when his full body was clear of the den, like a military hero trying to explain that he's not fighting for country, but for brotherhood. Balto saw this all in a pause that he took to look at the sun and see how much daylight was left; and to get his mind off of this happenings, but got lost in the large wolf. He seemed indifferent about an intruder, until eyes met.

He walked briskly forward, the crowd around Balto moved to the sides to accommodate his large frame and high status. He hardly even slowed.

"Who are you!" he commanded with a thunderous voice. "What are you doing here, are you hear for our food?"

"Balto, and no." Balto said timidly.

"I don't need to know your name, and you lie."

"N … no, I'm simply trying to -"

"Shut up!" the wolf commanded swiftly. "How stupid can you be to tread upon the north clans land?"

"I … d … idnt-"

"Shut up! When I want you to speak, I will tell you to speak."

Balto found himself stuttering, but it wasn't from as much fear as he had when he was chased by the humans and dogs, or on the fish trap; it was more fear of such a large wolf speaking so loud, cutting him off before he could say anything. At this rate of downhill climb in the conversation he would end up eaten, and from the looks of the wolves around him, it wasn't far away.

This time Balto kept his mouth shut, just trying to cope with the rules of the pack, and do what the leader says.

For a moment the leader was silent. He moved a little bit to the right then a little bit to the left, moving the crowd of wolves with him as he leaned. He then got right into Balto's face

"You know, you are such a stupid wolf that we should eat you right now."

Balto then suddenly realized that none of these wolves knew that he was half dog, maybe which was the only thing that was keeping them from doing just what he said, and eating him.

Balto waited for the command to answer.

"Well, what do you have to say?"

"You are much better than to lower yourselves to a state of cannibalism."

Without warning Zane flew forward and got a bight down on Balto's neck. Then with a simple turn of his neck, flipped Balto over onto his back, leaving him looking up into his open, growling, tooth filled, mouth.

"How dare you try and say that you are any better than us! We should feast now. My clan hasn't feasted in days, months even." he was now speaking to the crowd around him more than Balto. "Who here is hungry?"

"AAAHHH." came a reassuring yell.

"Wait!" Balto yelled, brining everyone's attention back to him. "I was not trying to lower anybody. I was simply trying to state that wolves such as yourselves are much better than to do something like that."

Zane seemed to calm down, he breathed slowly, thinking of this wolf that stood before him with the crime of trespassing.

"What are you doing here wolf?" Zane said eyeing him. "If you are not here to spy on us or to steel what little food we have, then what are you doing here?"

Balto took a moment to clear his throat while everyone of the wolves leaned in to hear exactly why he was here.

"I am simply passing through; I am on my way north to find the remnants of my parent's clan, and to recolonize my mother and fathers old den."

For Balto it was a blatant lie. He bit his tongue, thinking that they might see right through it, or start asking to many questions that could lead to his downfall.

The wolves were too silent for to long. They all just stared, leaning closer, especially Zane who seemed especially interested in Balto's plan.

Then with a sudden harmonious roar that shocked Balto into tucking his tail in between his legs, and flattening his ears against his head, they broke out into gut ripping belly laughter. Balto calmed, and half laughed with them. They didn't notice.

"What's so funny?" Balto inquired.

The laughter around the sides of the circle of wolves died down, and the mood returned more serious.

Zane then grinned in a buddy like way, shook his head, and heaved a laugh with his exhale. "You're absolutely free to go if you're traveling to the north."

Another lighter laugh went around the circle and Balto waited for it to die down before going on.

"What are you talking about? What do you mean I'm free to go?"

Zane smiled buddy buddy like again, then stepped to Balto's side.

"Come with me."

He nosed for Balto to walk up the hill with him. They both walked up the hill and rose up over the side to look at the endless expanse of land that lay to the north.

There Zane sat down on his haunches, and so did Balto. Balto no longer felt that this wolf was going to hurt him in any way, but was going to encourage him to go on, but maybe not to his liking. Balto looked at him, waiting for him to talk.

"Look out there." Zane ordered. "Out there, there is nothing."

Balto looked, there was nothing out there but many thousands of hills that moved up over the horizon in rolling sand colored hills that went as far into the horizon as the ocean or the mountains.

"There's no food, and no one, no wolves, no people, no one. Anybody who goes out there is assured that he is going to find himself starving. That's why I'm going to have the two wolves who attacked you, Nape and Mic, lead you to the northern most boundary of my land"

For a moment they were silent, then Balto spoke up just before Zane was about to turn and yell for something, most likely Nape and Mic to come up and lead him to the north.

"Have there every been any wolves north of you that you can remember?"

Zane turned, not angry at all about talking more.

"I don't know. There may be wolves really far up north, I haven't talked to them, and as far as I'm concerned there's probably nothing up there. But then again, maybe you know something that I don't know … I want to remind you before you go, that I'm only letting you live, if you go north, and don't return to my clan. Got it?"

Balto understood what Zane was saying, and somehow conveyed, silently, that he understood to Zane.

"Nape, Mic." Zane ordered over his shoulder.

Balto looked back to see that the wolves who had once been surrounding him had lost interest and now were laying down or sitting in their spots that they had most likely been at before his arrival.

The two wolves that had attacked him earlier were instantly on their feet. They both ran up the hill the best they could after such a long hard trip, and stopped in front of Zane, who had turned around.

"I want you two to take our friend here, to our northern most boundary of our land, and make sure he leaves and doesn't come back around. Got it?"

Nape, the brawny wolf, smiled evilly out of the corner of his mouth, as if he were aloud to do something evil to Balto.

"Yes sir, I'll take him to the north."

"You are also not to touch him, but you are to make sure that he doesn't try and come back."

Nape seemed to lose his happy smile out of the corner of his mouth, like being promised something and then having it taken away.

"ok." he moved out from under Zane's shadow and passed by Balto, whispering very calmly and friendly. "Come on."

Balto fallowed right after him, and after Balto came Mic. The three of them carried on down away from the den, and Zane, who stood at the top of the hill watching. Just before Balto got out of easy ear range, he had one more comment.

"Who do you plan to recolonize a distant den with? There's nothing up there to be your mate."

"I'll find someone." Balto replied comically. Zane only smiled, and watched as they moved on down through the valley, and up the other side. He only stopped watching Balto when Balto finally moved out of sight over the other hill.

The three of them traveled for another four hours before Balto began to get bored of the unending silence, and so began to talk.

"So Nape, you must have gotten a second wind after our first trip?"

Balto waited for an answer, but Nape didn't seem like he wanted to answer by his uncaring look away from Balto. He continued on behind Balto on steady flat tundra that ran parallel to the mountains and the ocean that was now more than ten miles away. The day was already beginning to come to a close. There wouldn't be too much travel time left.

"I must say, you are doing well, because this morning you looked very tired as you led me back to the den." Balto continued on without looking back to see if Nape was going to answer.

Balto looked back, and suddenly realized that Nape was no longer fallowing him, he was standing back about twenty feet.

"What did you stop for?" Balto asked.

"This is our northern most boundary; this is as far as we're going to take you."

Balto looked left and right, and as far as he could see, there was nothing. There was no sign at all that this was the northern most boundary, no river, no tree, nothing, except the unending fields of grass.

"Well, I guess I would like to -"

It was to late, when Balto looked back to thanks the wolves for taking him this far, they were already turned around and on they're way back.

"Thank you." Balto finished to himself.

He then turned and looked to the north. He didn't know how much further he would have to travel. It could have been days, or even minutes. But whatever the time, or the distance, he had to start moving. So he brought his pace up to a trot, and began to think about his very first run in with a wolf pack.


	10. Wolf Pack

**Chapter 10 **

The young grey pup lay low down in the snow on the edge of another nameless river. Boris came running up from behind him through the deep snow that blanketed the forest bottom and crashed into the snow next to the pup with a fluff of flying powder.

Boris momentarily got buried in the snow. But he then rose his head up and shook all the snow off and looked around. They were out on a point in the river, a spot where the river curved sharply out and would flood during spring runoff. Upstream they could see nearly a quarter mile of ice with wisps of snow across it, before it turned around the bank of a mountain. Downstream the river went for nearly a hundred yards before turning around another bank that jettisoned out.

Both Boris and the young pup were set perfectly out on the river. They were far enough up on the bank that they were still hidden by the trees, and close enough that they could see every detail of a wood-be passer by.

Boris turned his head sharply as the pup raised his nose to the sky and began to sniff.

"What is it?"

"I smell something."

The two waited for a moment. Boris could feel the every so slight breeze coming down the river and hills.

"Where from?" Boris asked leaning over.

The young pup motioned his nose upstream. "Up stream. They're not far."

The two remained completely silent for some time. It seemed like hours passed waiting for something to happen. Boris thought he could feel his feathers beginning to freeze, or something, maybe it was his body freezing solid. Boris looked at the young pup, and was just about to say that he didn't think anything was coming when the pup flattened his ears and laid his head down in the snow.

Boris looked upstream and could see four wolves coming around the corner of the mountain. Boris laid his head down in the snow next to the young pup, but kept a watchful eye open. The pup was in his way so he couldn't see around him, but when they passed in front, he would surly get a good view of these wolves.

More time passed, but this was unnerving time, the kind of time that you feel when your getting ready for a big game. Boris looked out on the river where the wolves would be passing at any moment. He felt the wind, it would be blowing parallel when they passed by.

Then suddenly one wolf moved into view around the young pups head and continued on without even the slightest hint of stopping. The next two fallowed the same. But then the forth one stopped. He lowered his head and sniffed at the snow just two dozen feet away from them. What was he smelling? Could it be them? But the wolf didn't linger around that one spot to long. He raised his head and could see his friends moving off down the river, and so moved along the same route. They were in the clear.

Boris raised his head and watched the wolves head down the river. The young pup also raised his head and watched. It seemed like it took forever for the last wolf to vanish behind the next bend, but when he did, the grey pup and Boris were instantly off of the cold snow and on their feet.

"Should we fallow them?" the grey pup asked.

"If we want to try and get you into a wolf pack, we should."

Boris watched as the young pup grew a satisfied smile. The pup wanted deeply to get into a pack, and feel like he had a family. He had told Boris this several nights previous just before falling asleep, and Boris hopped that he would be able to get the pup into a pack. But also, Boris had a secret fear. He knew that the pup was not a full blooded wolf, and could see it in his muzzle and ears, and wondered if this might be something that would inhibit his entry into a pack.

The young pup dropped down through the chest deep snow onto the smooth river ice. He walked out into the center of the river and lowered his nose to the ice and began sniffing at the large wolf tracks.

Boris fallowed behind the pup, falling through the snow with a groan, and sliding on his back out to the pup's feet. The pup giggled slightly.

"Well come on." Boris said standing up and wiping the snow from his back with his wings. "Let's get after them."

The two of them turned and began walking down the river on either side of the tracks were left. They staid side by side and quiet for some time.

Boris began to worry, but that was just his worrying nature. He knew that if they fallowed these tracks long enough they would eventually run into the wolves who had made them, or the entire pack.

They came to the last bend in the river that they had seen the four wolves at. Both of them slowed dramatically. Then finally Boris stopped, just twenty feet short of the bend.

The pup noticed Boris stop, but he didn't. He dropped down into stealth mode lowering himself to the snow, making every step he took count, and trying to use all of his senses. He snuck to the bank and edged along under the overhang very carefully.

Boris could feel the tension in the air. What if they had just stopped after the bend, and were waiting for them there? What if they had seen, or smelled him and the pup? They were probably right there, waiting for them to jolly-walk-it right into their jaws.

The grey pup slowly moved around the edge of the river, and eventually out of sight.

For a moment Boris was completely alone, standing out on the river ice, waiting for something to happen.

"Boy chick!" he finally yelled bolting forward and running around the bank edge.

There he found the pup looking down the river. The tracks continued on as far as Boris could see, most likely on down the river and around the next bend.

"what." the pup said with a half cocked smile. "Did you think I would just leave you alone?"

Boris smiled, the pup was beginning to have a real personality and he was starting to treat Boris as … well, a father. Boris knew that he had to get the pup into a pack so he could have a proper puppy hood.

"Well, we better get moving if we want to catch them."

"Yeah."

Boris watched the pup start trotting on down the river. Then he wondered. If they were trying to find the pack, or any of its members, than why were they trying to be sneaky?

They trotted on the same as before, Boris on one side of the tracks, and the pup on the other.

At the next bend the motions fell out the same. Boris stopped cold and watched as the pup moved the edge of the river. And the same as before, the pup moved around the edge of the bank and went on, leaving Boris all by himself. And again, Boris screamed and caught up the young pup who had kept moving along the tracks.

Both of them fell once again into the same style of walking, watching the tracks move between them as they did.

Then suddenly, Boris and the pup stopped cold. They both stared down between them where the tracks should have been, they were gone. Boris took a few steps back and could clearly see where the tracks had been, they had just stopped.

Boris was just about to say something to the pup when.

"Looking for someone?" came a sinister voice from behind them. "Because, were right here."

Boris and the pup both whipped around to be looking in the eyes of four wolves, all spread out and watching with curious eyes. The one closest to them who had talked had a light grey coat with reddish guard hairs. Another had what looked to be a black cape in his fur that went over one eye and wrapped, windswept, back around his body. Another one with steely eyes and a ripped ear had his head lowered down in preparation for an attack. He had a large body build with a slate black coat. The fourth wolf had a small build with his black and white coat.

"Um-"

"Um what!" the red haired wolf demanded.

"I just wanted to introduce myself." Boris said mater-of-factually.

The red wolf just stared at Boris, then moved his gaze slightly to the pup who sat a few feet back and to Boris's left.

"My name is Boris." Boris said extending a wing to the wolf as if to offer a means for the red wolf to introduce himself.

He took a step back and tilted his head towards the snow as if he didn't want to tell his name, or trying to think of a fake one.

"My name is Anil." he then motioned with his nose to his right where the wolf with the torn ear stood. "This is Chiron." He then turned his head over to his left. "And this is Echo" The wolf with the black cape bowed his head "and Dipack." The smaller one bowed his head also.

"Now tell us who he is." Anil said looking straight at the pup.

Boris sighed. "Well, he doesn't have a name."

Anil dropped one ear in skepticism. "What do you mean he doesn't have a name? What are you doing here?" He ordered on.

Boris clasped his wings together, gulped, and looked once at the pup who stood behind him. "I was hoping that we might be able to speak to your leader."

"What do you need to speak to our leader about?"

"Wouldn't that be between me and him?" Boris said pointing a feather at Anil.

Anil snapped his teeth at the extended feather, missing by just inches with a metallic click. Boris pulled his wing back and examined it to make sure it was still there, and then tucked it back behind him.

"Any business you have with our leader goes through us first." Anil growled.

"Ok, ok, ok. I wish to speak with your leader about adopting this pup I found on his own. He has no family, and I know that a wolf pack will never let a pup grow up on his own."

Anil bit his lower lip within his mouth, trying not to let either of the two intruders in front of him see him do it. But they did.

"Let me confer for a moment." Anil said turning around. The other three wolves formed a rough huddle and whispered silently to one another.

The pup moved up next to Boris and sat down beside him. They both looked at the wolves who seemed giant compared to the pup, speak into each others nose.

Boris put his wing up to the side of his head to try and better hear them, but the spoke so low that it was useless.

Finally the wolves broke up, and Anil turned to talk.

"We will take you to the head of our pack. But I cannot say if they will hear you out."

Boris gulped hard. What did he mean, 'they will not hear you out'?

"ok." he responded with a withered voice.

The four wolves turned to the hill to their right. Echo, Chiron, and Dipack all set off in a group towards the edge of the river, up the bank, and into the trees where they vanished, leaving Anil standing before them.

"You will fallow us." he ordered, then turned and began a steady trot along the trail that his fellow pack mates had left.

"Where are we going?" the grey pup asked innocently.

"To find the leader of the pack so we can talk to him, and try to get you into this pack." Boris responded.

"But-"

"Hurry up, or I will leave you here." Anil shouted from the raised bank.

"Come on, we better get going." Boris said heading after Anil and the other wolves.

The grey pup looked Anil in the eyes before he vanished into the trees, and felt a sudden rasp of fear drive down his spine. He had a bad feeling about these wolves. But maybe it was just a half empty belly.

The wolves had led Boris and the grey pup on a great journey over hill and dale. They had crossed cracking ice bridges nearly ten feet above open water, where one misstep would have led to a quick death. They climbed up over mountains, through bitter wind and snow, before cascading down through endless rock-fields. Hour after hard hour came and went without the slightest of thought. Then they arrived.

They came to a river that was frozen clear to the bottom. They could all tell this by the lack of any gurgling sounds under the ice. Ahead of them it just looked like another mountain they were going to climb. Tree's came down to the rivers edge, and above them they could see the craggy snow covered peaks, that the grey pup swore he had seen before, looming up before them.

"Were almost there." Anil announced back from the very front of the small column.

Boris and the grey pup were forced to stay in the very back, not that they complained any. They didn't have to fight any through the deep snow, the wolves fought that for them, they only had to walk in their well groomed path and fear for what was about to happen.

Anil bounced up the bank in a flurry of snow that at first went up the hill with him, then fell back down in miniature overlapping avalanches that piled in a thick spot at the bottom of the bank. He turned and waited for the others to fallow. Echo, Chiron, and Dipack had it just as easy to fallow Anil to the top of the bank. There they turned and waited for the young pup to fallow in suite.

Boris had no trouble making it up the ten foot bank, but halfway up he realized that the grey pup was having troubles.

Everyone watched as the young pup leapt as far up the bank as he could. But when he hit the snow it was like hitting a patch of steep ice and he slid backwards, rolling once and coming to a sitting position at the bottom. He tried again, and jumped as high as he could, and when his feet hit the ice slick bank he tried his best to run. But he fallowed like he had before, and slid to the bottom again.

Boris slid on his back down the bank and got up behind the young pup.

"Ok, we'll try and walk to the top."

"Ok."

Boris pushed madly on the pups rear-end, switching from wings to shoulder and back, but all Boris did was slip and slid as bad as the pup.

Anil grew tired of watching this; he rolled his eyes in annoyance, and stepped to the front of his four fellow pack mates. He began to walk down the hill and the slick ice bank took him. But he had been expecting it, and with a simple grace he spread his feet out and pushed up more snow as he slid to the bottom. He slid right up sideways next to the pup, stopping himself from running the pup over just as Anil's side ran gently into the pup's nose.

Anil turned and opened his large jaws towards the pup.

The pup jumped back when he felt this weight on his nose. The pup cringed under his overshadowing weight and size. He turned, lowered his ears against his head, and tried to run the other direction.

Anil swiftly grasped him by the nape of the neck and lifted him into the air. The pup could feel his face press against his skull and his legs dangling beneath him as he was swung around and carried up the hill.

At the top of the small bank that had proved to be such a problem for the young pup, he was softly dropped into the snow.

"Lets get moving." Anil announced as he turned and began to lead the way through the trees.

Boris joined the young pup's side. He held out his wings and tried to coax the pup to his feet. It was unnecessary; the pup came to his feet fine and fell in behind the other wolves as they sunk into deep snow.

Boris watched the young pup and felt strong for him. He smiled with this pride of the young pup's strength, but cringed at the fear of what they might be being led into. Boris watched the pup moved into the veil of trees, and suddenly realized he was being left behind and bolted to catch up.

The four wolves led them both on a foray through the maze of woods and half rabbit trails. Soon they broke free of the trees into a clearing wide and long with rolling pure white hills of snow. The clearing slopped in an uphill direction towards a stand of spruce that looked to be the top of the world.

The wolves began to walk in a straight line towards the group of trees.

The young pup stood in the very back watching them carve a trail through the snow. The young pup knew that this was the place where the den was, that this was the place where the pack would be waiting. Maybe it was the lack of the sounds of nature around them that told him something was near? He didn't know? Whatever it was, he knew that it was close.

The field was long, but it seemed to take no time at all to cross. Maybe it was the fear of what was to come? Once inside the realm of the trees, the three wolves sat down on their haunches in the snow.

"Stop." Anil ordered.

The grey pup sat on his haunches and studied the forest around. It was a small forest, maybe a hundred feet across at the longest point, with windswept snow built up on the leeward side of the trees. Up above the tree limbs were old and dead to a height of ten feet, then from there up it was green and abundant with pine needles and pine cones.

A sudden sound caught the pups ear and sent his head wheeling about to look through the forest. He noticed something moving, something large. It was coming towards him.

"A bear." he whispered to himself. The creature was so large. Although he hadn't seen a bear in his entire life, but Boris had told him many stories about bears, and what they could do, he hoped that he would never have to tangle with one.

Boris had herd his insignificant whisper and leaned closer. "What?"

"A bear." the pup said pointing with his nose through the woods. "Do you think we should tell them?"

"No need to tell us anything." Anil spoke up without looking over at the pup; he was seeing the same thing that the pup was seeing. "It's our alpha male, Ajit … my father."

Boris noticed the distinct pause in Anil's last sentence.

The grey pup watched as the large reddish brown creature moved towards him. The creature was so large that he still didn't believe that it was a wolf of any sorts. Would he ever be that big?

Soon Ajit came to within ten feet of Anil, and here he sat. Boris and the young pup looked around, noticing that there wasn't anyone else fallowing him, no friends, no mate, and no nothing.

"What have you brought me son?" Ajit spoke up with that deep hardworking fatherly voice.

"I brought you intruders, we found them spying on us." Anil said turning his head slightly to motion towards the pup.

Ajit's' gaze fell on the young pup and his traveling. Bird? He cocked an eyebrow and stepped forward to the front of the pup and Boris.

The pup began to slip back behind Boris when the large wolf stood in front of him. He lowered himself down into the snow behind him, and waited.

"Why is he hiding?" Ajit ordered the goose. "Who are you?" he ordered on.

Boris made a fist with his wing and cleared his throat in it and took one mighty step forward. "My name is Boris." he paused and turned to show the pup who cowered behind his wing. "And this is…um; well … he doesn't have a name."

Ajit lowered his nose to the young pup. "How can a young one not have a name?"

"Well, he doesn't have any family. And he was separated from his mother before he could be properly named. I have been taking care of him for some time."

Ajit still stared, slightly cockeyed at both of them. "So you're a goose, who's been taking care of a, pup?"

Boris noticed that the other wolves were smiling, on the verge of breaking out hysterically, grunting and trying not to look at Boris.

"Well, yes-"

It happened in a sudden explosion of laughter to Boris's left. The four wolves who had escorted them in were laughing and crying, staring at one another, unable to hold themselves in. Even Ajit began to giggle under his smile.

"I'm sorry, it's just that …" he paused for a moment as he expelled a laugh through his tightly pinched lips. Then waited a moment to recover. The other four wolves waited for what he had to say. "I'm surprised that he doesn't honk, instead of bark."

This time Ajit broke out with an uncontrollable laugh that sent the other four reeling onto their backs in the snow.

The young pup was absolutely frightened by these large wolves. He was smart enough to know that they were laughing at him, and he didn't like it, but he was too small and meek to stand up for himself. Oh why couldn't this just get over with?

"Oh, aahh." Ajit said coming down from his laughter.

"That was good dad." Anil said with a smile. Ajit smiled back at his son, before returning to Boris and the small pup. "Ok, so what do you want?"

"Well, I know, at least I think I know, that if a young wolf is orphaned, that if the young pup can get to another wolf pack, he will be accepted. Because wolf packs don't let pups grow up orphaned. Right?"

Ajit shoot his head in agreement. "Yes this is our customs." he then smiled with an evil dark glare in his eyes. "But you must first be of full blood."

Boris cringed and ground his beak together. "What do you mean? He is of full blood."

Ajit stepped around Boris and sat down just a nose away from the young pup. The pup didn't feel comfortable with how close Ajit was sitting to him.

"Don't try and pass this, this, half-breed off on me … I am not stupid enough to fall for that."

"What do you mean; he has to be of full blood." Boris lied.

"You don't seem to listen, do you? His muzzle is to short, and his ears are to stiff. These are traits of a dog. If you look at me, my son, and his friends, you will notice that we all have long muzzles, and floppy ears?"

Ajit threw his right paw across the top of the young pups head, flipping his ear up and throwing him slightly sideways. "And he has dog, traits."

The pup was so afraid that he was being attacked that he bolted from under Ajit to hide behind Boris again.

"Now, I would please ask you, bird, to take your young ward, and leave my land." Suddenly Ajit had become overbearing and gruff. He no longer had any laughter to his spirit, or to any of his facial features. He had gone around the bend of anger, and had no intention of coming back.

"b- Bu-bu-b- but you are-"

"I, said, leave." Ajit was now stone serious.

Boris watched Anil and his three friends begin to close in on him and the young pup. But he had come so long, and so far, that suddenly Boris was filled with a power that helped him stand up in the face of these five vicious ogling wolves.

"Now listen to me!" Boris ordered with an extended feather towards Ajit's mouth.

Ajit took little heed to his heightened voice and tried to snap his jaws on Boris's wing. They came together with a click, and Boris brought the wing back and made sure it was still there with a wary glance.

"Now! You leave!" Ajit ordered

The young pup began to step backwards, looking warily about to his right and left, searching for an escape.

Boris still hadn't lost his breath of courage, and kept talking. "He is just a small pup. He has nothing. I want him to have a good wolf brining."

Ajit laughed and shook his head side to side. "You're not listening to me. I'm saying that you have to leave. Now, you're going to leave. And if you don't leave immediately, don't expect to be leaving."

Boris still held strong to his courage in the face of fear. For a moment no one spoke, and the tension grew thick in the air.

The pup could feel this tension, and it was more then he could bear. He spun around in the snow, and in a flash was racing back down out of the trees.

Anil and his three friends bolted after the small pup. They plowed right over Boris in a flash, and were on the pup in moments.

Boris hadn't even known what happened when he got hit. He knew that an attack was on, but he thought it was for him by the power that the wolves had hit him with. For a moment he lay on his back expecting the worst, expecting the wolves to circle around and start feasting on his plump body.

But the moment of fear passed just as quickly as it had come on when he herd the pup scream out in pain.

He rose to his feet and spun around to see the four wolves circled around the young pup. The pup was on his back, his paws up in the air and his small white teeth trying to flash back against the impressing odds against him.

"Hold it right there!" Boris yelled out and got a run towards the back of one of the wolves. But suddenly the group of wolves twisted violently about, and Boris got a face full of paw.

It knocked him over on his back, then he rolled over onto his side, only half the lights on in his head.

The young pup had seen Boris through the forest of teeth and fur around him. He had seen him get knocked down and out, now it seemed that he was going to die, and that was when he realized that he had nothing to loose in trying to fight back with his full force.

He snapped up into the field of teeth and managed to hook his teeth on a wolfs nose. He jumped back in pain, leaving a small sliver of furred skin inside the pup's mouth. He could taste the blood of the wolf, and found it bitter to him. He spit it away, then heard the wolf he had bit scream out.

The other three wolves were still thrashing about trying to grasp him in their mouths and rip him apart. He had already felt many of their teeth passing through his slim body parts. But he still felt like he didn't have a chance. Sooner or later they would get a good hold on him, and he would be split four ways. It was going to happen no matter what. So he quietly tucked himself into a small ball with his feet in the air, and tried to let everything around him vanish. He felt warm and full, death didn't seem too bad.

"Stop it! Stop it!" came a feminine voice from the trees. "You stop it right now."

The three wolves that had stayed on the young pup released there grip, Leaving the pup bloodied in the snow, but alive.

The turned and looked at who had told them to stop.

A young looking female trotted down through the trees towards the group of males. She looked disgusted with her mate, and every other male there.

"What do you want Triska?" Ajit said turning to confront her.

"I want to know what you think your doing."

The young pup saw his chance to escape. He rolled over on his feet and bolted through the feet of the wolves who still surrounded him with their heads held up to watch the female who the young pup didn't know, and didn't care to know. They hardly noticed him move, and only glanced down once as he ran towards Boris.

The young pup could see the Boris was still breathing, but he looked dead. His tongue hung out of his beak and his eyes cast coldly sideways. He wanted to say something to Boris, but was too afraid to say anything.

The young pup grasped Boris's right wing in his teeth, and then as fast as he could, he backpedaled down past the wolves the way that he had come and out into the field.

The circle of wolves glanced once again at him as he pulled the cold bird past their small circle, but didn't seem to care. They were too intrigued with their leaders squabbling that was just beginning to unfold.

"-so this bird comes up to be and tells me that I am to take this half-breed pup, and raise him as my own. So I told the bird that he is a half-breed, and the rules of the pack don't apply to him. He didn't listen. So I had my boys attack him."

"That is the lousiest excuse!" Triska snapped at him. "If I had wanted to hear lies, I would have asked you to lie to me."

"Triska, it's the truth." Ajit pleaded. He began to move slowly towards her in a loving, trusting way. "I would never lie to you." he said coming up to a distance that she could have easily reached out and ripped his shoulder or neck. But Ajit knew her, he knew that she wouldn't do anything but give up and leave. Especially when he acted this calm and suave.

Then suddenly something unexpected happened. She jumped forward with an open mouth and put one long slash along his right shoulder.

Ajit jumped back, throwing his left paw across the gaping wound in shock. It was nearly an inch across, and six inches long, and gushed blood down across his chest and leg and snow in moments. But he fumbled for balance on his three remaining legs and slammed his blood covered paw down into the snow, and let the wound bleed out.

Ajit took a moment to examine the wound. He could still hardly realize that he had just been attacked by his mate.

"You attacked me?" he said in astonishment. "You actually attacked me?"

Triska licked her chops and bared teeth that still had a watercolor thin film of blood across them.

"Maybe it will teach you a lesson. That I am half of this clan, and I am to be confronted before any situation is to be acted upon." she growled. "now." she calmed down and stood straight up from her spread out attack stance. "You will return to the den, where I will properly yell at you."

Ajit was still in to much shock to argue. He still couldn't believe that he had been attacked by his mate; she was normally so calm and laid back. This time he must have pushed some serious buttons to get her to put a six inch rip in his side.

"okay." he said still watching the blood course down his chest. His voice calm and agreeing.

He turned and slowly made his way through the woods like a silent warrior in repose.

Anil watched his father with a half cocked mouth. He could hardly believe that his mother had done something like that. Then his mother turned her cold eyed gaze onto him. His tail slipped between his legs and he lowered his ears flat against the back of his head.

But her wrath didn't open up on him. She sighed and came back to her usual, almost uncaring, self. But she did care and bit her lip lightly as if she were holding back a thrashing.

Anil turned and looked at the pup who still ran halfway across the field. Maybe this could be his way out?

"Do you want me to go out there and bring him back?"

"No." Triska said glancing at the pup who still bolted for the distant trees with a bird in tow. "We have hurt him enough, let him try and find another pack that will be nicer to him, and let him into their workings."

Triska turned and began to walk after her mate who had already vanished.

Anil was suddenly overcome with guilt. Somehow he felt that this was his fault, and now he could see the cruelty in his ways. He lowered his ears and looked one more time at the pup before he vanished into the trees. This was his entire fault.

The young pup stopped at the riverbank among some willows, and dropped Boris's wing. Boris began to sit up, putting his wing to his head after coming back from such a hard knock to the face.

The pup rested for a moment. He panted hard and had a bewildered look about his eyes a face. He constantly looked back to see if anything was coming, to see if the wolves were returning to finish him and Boris off.

After such a brutal attack the pup was amazed to find that he was fine for the wear. He only had a few scratches that bled consistently, but he was fine. Although he was afraid for Boris.

"Are you ok Uncle Boris?" the pup asked in one breathless heave. Then looked back the way they had come.

Boris rubbed his head a little bit more, and then examined the palm of his wing. "Yeah, I'm just fine. What happened?"

For the first time Boris noticed the cuts and scratches and blood all over the young pups tangled fur.

"Are you hurt?" Boris asked coming to his feet. "If so let me see."

"No, I'm fine. But we better get out of here before they come after us."

Boris looked back through the trees where he could see his own drag marks in the snow. "I wouldn't worry. If they were going to get us, they would have already done it."

"How do you know?" the pup said twisting his head around. "How do you know?"

Boris could sense the poor mood of the young pup. This meeting hadn't gone well at all, and he knew that the pup might not trust his decision again.

Boris turned and began to waddle down the riverbank. The pup barely noticed that he had left he was so busy watching the trail they had come down.

"Where are you going?"

Boris stopped and turned. "Well it's no use just waiting here for them to come and get us, might as well try and get away."

The pup bolted to his feet, and fallowed the goose who he thought of as father.


	11. Home

It came to Balto with such sudden shock that he found himself gasping for breath and having to stand back to take it all it. Not that standing back any helped for him to take the breathtaking view into himself.

He was here. He was home.

For the last several days Balto had been on an endless trip through waste lands of the north. He hadn't seen a single sign that another animal inhabited the land, tracks, scat, or the animals themselves. He walked for hours, days at a time, scavenging field mice to eat. He was pushing himself to the limit of what he could do, and to see just how far he could go. But he had found it, and just like Nava had said, he knew that he was home.

The valley stretched nearly a miles wide at the mouth, and over two miles wide at the two peaks that stated the end of the valley. In the middle a small creek flowed through thick brush and bramble before leaving the valley to flow like an old man to the sea six miles away. On either wall of the valley lay thousands of boulders all stacked atop one another all the way to the tops of the mountain's on either side.

Balto wondered if those were the places where he played with his brother's and sister's as a child. Had he laid down in the shade of the little shrub trees? Drank from those waters? Or was this just another wishful hope that he had found his home? No! This had to be his home, it was just too familiar to be another valley.

He wanted to move down into the valley, but when his brain tried to send the message to his feet, they wouldn't move. He looked at them to see what the matter was. But they just sat there in the dead flowers. He finally felt himself pushed forward and bolted down the hill into the belly of the valley into his home.

He ran down the hill with dead flowers and across the grassy field towards the low bushy fagots standing next to the small creek. Balto found a small place where a trail vanished into the darkness of the underbrush never stopping to second think what might have made the large hole; he raced through the opening, and before he knew it he sloshed into muddy water.

He leaned his head down and took one long gulping drink from a spot of clear water that he hadn't muddied up. It was clean and reviving, he didn't need the drink, but it tasted so good. He came up with water dripping off his chops, he was home, now all he had to do was find where home used to be.

He made his way out of the thicket and up the other side of the valley until he was on a higher slop and could see the entire valley from a sitting position. The valley moved up for nearly ten miles before veering to the left where it ran headfirst into a glacier wall the size of a mountain. The thicket of brush made it way along the creek for mile after mile, sometimes vanishing to just the small creek, and sometimes becoming so wide with brush that it looked to be a forest. On either side of the creek, as it made it's meandering way rocks mounds, varying from ten feet, to fifty feet in height, rose up into the sky, making a perfect spot for wolves to gather, or possibly build a den.

Balto just wanted to take it all in, to feel his native earth, but something seemed wrong. The air was dead, no bugs flew, no birds sang, and no wind blew. The valley was void of life that moved and sang and breathed with the love of simply being. "What is this?" Balto said to himself. The void valley scared, and exhilarated him all at the same time.

Balto's eye caught a nearby mound of rock and dirt with a small bunch of sticks around a large grey rock. The mound was just a half mile upstream and just on the other side of the creek, and it looked to be the perfect spot for a den. At least that's where he would build a den if this was his land. It was down wind, with a central location to everything up the valley, meaning that any animal going up the valley would be bottlenecked in. If there were any animals in this valley?

Balto hadn't seen a single sign the entire trip north of the town, besides the starving wolves who told him there was nothing up here.

It only took Balto a few minutes to make the half mile jaunt to the rock mound; and just like he thought, by the rock, under the scraggly brush trees, there was a hole leading down into the ground. But it only took Balto a moment to realize that the den was void of life. Roots hung down in the entrance, clogged with dirt from countless years of growing. Balto sniffed into the mouth of the den and all he could smell was the damp smell of wet dirt. But was this his home? At one time maybe?

He pushed down into the den, but came head on with a large rock that had fallen down some years past. Balto backed out of the hole, despondent that this might have been his birthplace, but he was unable to enter it and see if anything seemed familiar.

He hadn't been looking into the darkened hole, trying to remember, more than a few seconds when.

"Hey you."

Balto zipped around. Up the hill from him standing proudly against the sky a singly male wolf looked with deathly cold eyes down on him. "Who are you?" the wolf paused for a moment. "What are you doing here?"

"My name is -"

"Your name means nothing to me." the wolf retorted without hesitation. "What are you doing here?"

Balto was just about to answer when another wolf appeared twenty feet off to the wolfs left. Balto eyed that wolf, catching him before he could answer the first wolfs question.

"I said, what are you doing here." the first wolf growled brining Balto's attention back to him.

"I am looking, for something, or someone." Balto answered.

"Who are you looking for? What are you looking for?" the wolf commanded again.

"I am looking for my home." Balto said proudly.

The wolf's eyes squinted in wonder. "You must really be lost."

Balto didn't know if he was supposed to take it serious, or humorous. He waited for a moment, letting the breeze brush the grass and the awkward silence reign. Then the wolf began again.

"From where have you come?"

"I have come many days and nights. I have traveled long distance with little food, and without the protection of my  pack." Balto threw out abruptly. The wolf might have asked more questions if he had used the word family, and might have attacked if he knew Balto was a wolf dog with a home in a town.

"Why would you think that your home would be here?"

"I dreamed of it and was told where I would find my home by an elder wolf I met. He told me to come north, past the last sight of wolf, and into the rough of a barren wilderness." The story sounded far fetched to Balto; and he was the one saying it.

"You say that you left your family?"

"My pack is my family, yes."

Balto noticed something different about the wolf. He was no longer offensive and snarling down Balto's throat; he was calm, cool, almost sympathizing.

"Did you leave your mate by herself?"

Balto thought about Jenna. "Yes, I did. But I do not fear that she will come to any harm in my territory."

"But what if another male comes to claim what you have left unguarded? Then you will have lost everything."

Balto was just about to rebuttal when the wolf descended down the hill and stopped ten feet away from Balto. The other wolf that Balto had seen on the hill followed alike, joining by the first wolf's side. It didn't take Balto more than a second to realize that the second wolf was the first wolf's mate. She had beautiful grey fur speckled with guard hair of a darker grey. This flowed around her body, seeming to come from her shoulders and drape her like a cape. Her face was thin and motherly, petite, and all knowing.

The first wolf was different. He was smaller with a thin face, like a dog. His muscles rippled just underneath his dark grey fur, hiding an explosive power that at any moment could come to life. But there was something else to him, something that seemed familiar. It was his body shape. Balto knew that if he had met this wolf on the streets of Nome he would have mistaken him for a large dog.

"My name is Elek, and this is my mate Avelin. What is your name?"

"My name is Balto." His name had no effect on them.

"What is your father's name?" Elek asked.

"I'm afraid that I do not know my fathers name; I never knew him before I got separated from my mother, Aniu during a snowstorm." Balto noticed that Elek's facial expressions changed slightly at the mention of his mother's name. "Do you know of Aniu?"

"No." Elek said changing back to the offensive side. "It is just a name."

Avelin looked at her mate with a peculiar glace. Balto noted it.

"Listen Balto." Elek started. "I'm sure you have a beautiful mate somewhere, and a family who is worried to death about you. There is nothing here for you. Now why don't you go home before something might happen to them?"

"But I've come so far." Balto pleaded. But Elek was right. The seasons were already changing, flowerers were dying, and every night the wind blew a little bit harsher and a little bit colder. Winter would be upon the land soon; and if he couldn't get back to Jenna by the first snowfall; he wouldn't until spring.

But Elek had to know something about Balto's past, he asked for his father's name, then there was the reaction he had to his mother's name. "Isn't there something that you can tell me?"

"Sorry. I don't know anything about you, or Aniu, or anything about this valley." Elek finished with a growl. "I was captured long ago, far from here, by humans and forced to fight for their entertainment before escaping from the human village to the south. I fell into a pack just north of the village, where I met my mate Avelin. We both ran north to this valley, and that's all I know."

Balto stepped back to show that he wasn't trying to push any further. Balto knew deep down that Elek was lying right to his face; there were too many holes in his story for it to be true. For one, Elek had no scars like most dogs that were in fighting rings, and his mate Avelin mirrored what Balto must have looked like, complete shock and horror.

"Now go home." Elek said sternly. "There's nothing here for you." Elek then turned and began to walk away. Avelin watched her mate walk away in a huff. She looked at Balto, who stared abruptly, then ran after her mate.

Balto really didn't know how to feel. When he tried to find that emotion that he should have been feeling there was only a blank spot, and a feeling of emptiness. He watched Elek and Avelin wander out of sight, it was time to go home, and he knew it with sadness.

Balto lowered his head, his eyes, and his hopes. He turned himself around, and then began forcing his legs to move forward, back to home without a shred of an idea as to who his parents were and what were the happenings that last time he saw his mother.

"What are you doing Elek?" Avelin asked.

Elek turned his head away and began to walk in a slightly different direction.

"Elek, pay attention to me." she demanded.

One again Elek changed his course, purposely ignoring her, hoping that she would loose interest, but it wasn't working.

"Elek!"

"What!" He said turning to face her. "What do you want?"

"I want to know why."

"Why what!" Elek yelled, turned and began walking away again.

Avelin bounded twice and caught up to her mate. "Why you are letting him go."

"Because as far as I am concerned, he was dead long ago. You remember what happened when I let the past get in my way? Friends got hurt, it was my fault."

"Yes, I do. And yes it was your fault." Elek glanced irately at Avelin. "But now he has come far, leaving everything behind, to find out what happened. He's done what you did; he's given up everything to find you. And now, when he's on your doorstep, you're going to turn your back on him because you were unable to find him in the past?"

Elek looked at her, still flush with anger. "yes." he turned and walked away, leaving Avelin standing with her mouth agape.


	12. An End?

**Chapter 12**

The shallow patch of windblown trees was the only sign of safe refuge in any direction. The trees were stunted and stripped of most of their bark. They were folded over where gusts of wind forced them to grow over themselves into the ground, creating little coves where one could hide

A pair of eyes looked through the branches of one of these little coves back over a pair of winding footsteps that was slowly being pushed under by the blowing snows of an encroaching storm.

The eyes turned away - satisfied that the storm would hide his tracks, to the Russian snow goose, Boris. Boris looked up at the young pups cold eyes that were void of a soul. He waited for the young pup to speak. But speak he didn't.

"Is our trail being covered?" Boris asked. It was an absurd question. It had been nearly a week since they had been attacked by the wolf-pack, and nearly one-hundred and fifty miles of ground.

The young pup only glanced over at Boris before turning away and sitting down with his back to him. Boris could see the scars on the young pups back. They were deep and savage, but healing.

"You know that we probably don't need to be worried about those wolves anymore. It's been nearly a week, and we are well out of their territory."

Boris waited for the pup to say something back. The pup was silent.

"Are you okay Boy-chic?"

The pup still remained silent, frozen.

"Boy-chic?"

"I'm fine." The young pup responded unenthusiastically. "I was just thinking."

"About what?"

The pup came to his feet and turned out into the cold wind. "Nothing."

Boris didn't like the way the pup sounded when he said 'nothing.' It was cold and uncaring, thoughtless, and almost angry.

The pup found a spot on the windless side of a tree, and sat with his back once again to Boris.

Boris looked at the scrawny pup and felt the worry mounting up inside him. In the week that they had spent traveling from the wolf pack's land the young grey pup had not eaten once, and it was beginning to show. The pup was thin before, but now he was gaunt. His skin clung grotesquely to his ribs and skull, his eyes were sunk into his head and his belly touched his. He was the epiphany of a dead animal.

Boris waddled after the young pup and arrived at his side. He put his wing around the pup, but the pup shrugged it off and stepped just a little further away.

"Boy-chic … I want you to know that you can tell me anything. I want to help you, and if you don't help me, and yourself, I can't help you. So why don't you tell me what's on your mind."

The grey pup came to his feet and turned away. He moved to another tree that was equally as wide and over twenty feet away. Sitting down he once again looked away into nothingness.

Boris wasn't going to give up on the pup just yet. He followed the pup and stood by his side once again, this time taking a different approach.

"You need to eat Boy-chic." Boris urged. "If you want to make it to spring and summer - and another wolf pack - we need to head inland where we can find food."

The pup was instant in his answer. "Please leave me alone? I just need some time to myself."

Boris could see that the pup needed some time alone. He needed time to think, time to sort things out and see where he stood. He needed to be with himself. But Boris was afraid that if the pup was with himself for to long that something bad might happen.

Boris turned, figuring that in a few minutes when the sun had set and the cold arctic night truly set in; the pup would return for the shared warmth. The pup had to be incredibly cold without any body fat. Boris looked once back at the pup when he reached the little cove of willow. The pup was still quiet. He had to be cold.

Boris tucked his wings around his side and his feet up against his body. He laid his head over on his side and tried to keep warm.

The night was beginning to settle, and with the settling came the unbearable cold. It came from everywhere. It came from the sky, the snow, and the gaunt trees around him. After twenty minutes of shivering Boris raised his head.

"Hey Boy-chic. Why don't you come over here and get warm."

Boris waited for an answer. But the answer never came. The pup just sat and remained quiet, looking away into the night.

"He just needs more time," Boris whispered to himself. "More time."

Boris laid his head back down against his soft feather, trying to keep warm for several hours. But somewhere in those hours he fell asleep, and missed the pup's departure.

* * *

The storm picked up just after the sun vanished and the night fell throughout the land of ice. The snow fell hard and fast, the wind picking what fell up and throwing it into the air to blow hundreds of feet, ormiles, until finding a resting spot on the windless side of a short hill or mountain. The Arctic Ocean ice super-cooled the wind of the storm, bringing the temperature down to numbers that would freeze thermometers. 

The young grey pup stumbled through the storm and snow. He was half frozen and about ready to give up, if he didn't want to live so badly. The idea of running out into the storm to die now seemed stupid. But that was the main thought going through his head as he stumbled about shivering. Oh why had he come out here? Could there have been a different path to take? Maybe a different wolf pack that would have accepted him? Why did he act without thinking every option through?

The young pup stopped and sat in the ankle deep snow. He looked back where he thought his path would be to find that all his tracks had been swallowed instantly by the wind.

This was bad. It had been three hours since he left the safety of the trees and Boris to quietly die. He walked endlessly in this direction or that. Now he knew that he was far out on the ice, possibly out of sight of land. He never wanted to live so badly in his life; he would have done anything to live. But now that he had committed to his self destructive act, all he could do was finish it. There was no possibility of being found by Boris, he would be long dead before Boris even woke up.

The young pup ended it with that thought. Boris, the only one who ever cared for him, wouldn't even wake before he was dead.

The young pup lay down in the snow and could feel the intense cold biting through his fur. He was miserable, and the cold only made him more miserable. Then after just a few seconds the cold began to feel distant. He began to feel peaceful and at rest. He felt like he was leaving his body, but he was still there. The last thing he saw before closing his eyes were two snowdrifts slowly moving towards him.


	13. Brotherly Love

Balto was frustrated. That was the only way he could put his anger into words. He wasn't entirely hatful -on the verge of killing - but yet he wasn't ready to just let Elek slide. Balto had traveled a long way, wasting an entire summer on a trip that had almost cost him his life at certain times; and he wasn't about to let this go with a few mean words thrown his way.

Balto stood at the mouth of the valley on the peak of the hill that he had come over earlier in the day. The sun was beginning to set to the west and night started to shroud the dead grass and flowers around him. In a few hours only the stars, and possibly the northern lights, would provide light for his path.

He reached a paw out towards the stem of a dead flower in a fit of madness and knocked it down triumphantly, but didn't stop to celebrate the minor victory over something smaller.

"Why?" Balto said aloud. "Why can't I get him to just talk to me? I know that that wolf knows something about my family. I mean he's living in the valley where I grew up. Right?"

Balto turned his head away then looked back up the darkened valley. "This has to be my home, it has to be. Nava told me I would know when I reached the valley of my youth. So why didn't Nava tell me about this stubborn wolf?"

Balto had to know, he had to know about his past, he had to know what that wolf knew. Balto stepped back into the valley to confront Elek about his past.

* * *

Elek sat just outside the lonely den entrance, his head on his front paw, the grass just in front of his nose moving back and forth with his breath. Avelin appeared in his vision and Elek closed his eyes pretending that he was sleeping. Avelin saw right through his farce. She turned and Elek sensed that she had turned and opened his eyes slightly. He watched her walk in front of the den entrance and sit. She looked down into the empty space where young pups should have been and began to sob silently.

It was his fault. Elek knew perfectly well that the lack of pups was his fault and he punished himself every minute of every day for it. It had been his foolhardiness that had sent his first litter - three boys and two girls- to a premature grave. It was his fault and he punished himself by not allowing himself to bring any more pups into the world under such a thoughtless father. He had hopped that Avelin would grow tired of his abstinence and seek another mate, but she was faithful - probably until she died. It hurt Elek so much to know that his self imposed punishment was also punishing his mate.

A single tear ran down Elek's right cheek and down onto his paw. He turned his head away from Avelin; he couldn't bear to let her see him cry.

"You know I don't really believe that it was your fault?" Avelin said quietly with her back to Elek. "I would never put blame like that on your shoulders."

Another tear ran quickly down Elek's other cheek and onto the ground.

"I know you're not sleeping."

"I know." Elek responded quietly. "You know me to good." He waited a moment, then spoke "I don't deserve you. You're to wonderful for me."

"Of course you do." Avelin stood and turned around to face her mate. "When I choose you, I choose you until I died. I knew that"

Elek buried his face down under his paws; he knew that his fur had streak marks where single tears had flowed forth.

"It's okay to cry." Avelin comforted as she came to her mate's side and lay down next to him. "I'm not angry with you, I could never be angry with you … but I want you to think about Balto."

"What about him." Elek said raising his head. Avelin could hear the tenseness in his voice.

"You keep setting the blame on his shoulders, when you know there is no blame to put on Balto." Avelin stopped and thought. "You once told me that living life in the past was the worst thing you could do."

Elek listened on.

"And now that's all you seem to be doing, remembering the pups that we don't have, and the brother you never found. You need to let the past go."

"But it's so hard." Elek confessed. "I just don't want to forget my first litter, and I don't want to forget my brother."

"So why are you letting him leave?"

Elek thought about this. It didn't make any sense at all why he was forcing his brother to leave when his brother had come so far to see him. Maybe talking to his brother would be the best thing for him? Maybe it would clear his mind of this self loathing that had imprisoned him.

Elek came to his feet. "You're right. I need to go talk with him."

Elek turned and moved around his mate and down the dark grassy hill towards the mouth of the valley.

Avelin watched him vanish with a smile across her face.

Elek moved down the valley at a quick clip. It had been over an hour since he had chased his brother away, and if Balto had taken his advice, he would be a long ways away by now. Elek crossed the creek through a thicket and moved on down a long field with long bent-over dead grass. He followed his trail through the center of the field and into another thicket. He appeared on the other side and almost tripped over himself when he saw Balto standing on the other side of the short field. The field was small with a thicket at both end's and one on Elek's right side. Theleft side was wide open all the way to the tips of the mountains.

Elek sat down as Balto was and looked at him for a moment. Here was his brother, here was his equal.

"Bal-"

"Listen!" Balto commanded. "I have traveled a very long distance, and I don't care if I have to blow right through you to get some answers!" That was coming from Balto's mouth?

"But Bal-"

"I don't want to hear about how you want me to leave, I need to know. My entire life I have felt like I was just abandoned, hated, left for dead. I need to know about my past!"

"Balt-"

"Quiet! Now, I want you to tell me anything you might possibly know about my past!" It felt good to Balto that he was speaking to this wolf in this tone. He just hoped that the wolf wouldn't get angry and call for reinforcements. Balto had no idea how many wolves might be in this pack.

There was one thing that Elek hated more than anything else, and that was being pushed around by others. The thought of his brother - especially his brother, demanding things of him, not asking, not begging, made his blood boil. Elek answered to nobody but himself.

"No! you're going to listen to me now." Elek commanded.

This wasn't going good, Balto thought. "I want to know about my past!"

"No, you're going to listen to me, and you're going to do what I say."

"Don't make me have to hurt you to get my answers." Oh why was Balto digging himself deeper? Maybe he shouldn't have been so demanding at first?

Elek stood and took several steps forward into the grass.

Balto did the same and stopped at the same point that Elek did. He wasn't going to push any more than Elek would.

Elek took another threatening step forward. His blood was boiling so thick in his body that he wanted to explode. He had to calm

Balto took one step forward. He now just wanted this to end without bloodshed.

"Balto?"

"Yes." Balto was surprised how Elek had suddenly calmed.

"I do know some things about your past. About your parents But before I tell you any of them; I want to tell you a story."

"Okay."

"When I first met my mate I thought the world had become my playground. Anything I wanted I could have. That first spring with her we had five pups, three boys, two girls. I was still young, but I felt I had everything in the world. There was only one more thing I wanted. I wanted to find my brother I hadn't seen since I was a pup.

"So that fall when my pups were strong, I wanted to go and find my brother's trail. The game here was scarce, not enough to feed a whole big family. So Avelin agreed on the condition that we would stop and find a home before the first snowfall. We went south, that was the last place I knew where my brother went.

"But then things began going wrong. It was an early snowfall, deep snow, cold snow. Avelin tried to convince me to return home, we could go another year and leave next spring when the pups were bigger. But I was stubborn, I wanted to keep going. I wasn't cold. My thoughts were if they would just hurry up and move a little more we would be warm.

"Then we went into some high mountains, and my youngest - Micro - fell sick. I realized that I had pushed my family on my own greed for my own purpose. I only hoped that we would be able to make it out of the mountains and into lower country with more game before the valleys became impassible. It was too late. We were trapped within those mountains by the snows. Micro died."

Balto could see a tear run down Elek's cheek and down into the grass. Elek continued.

"Food was incredibly scarce. There was nothing but squirrels and a couple dead moose already picked clean. I refused to eat. I would have rather known that they all make it out of there, than to see them make it out.

"Tasha got sick, then died. Many got sick and died. We were cold and hungry every night, and I cursed myself openly. Slant died, he froze to death. Miny lived the longest. She eventually stepped into some overflow and froze her feet. She died painfully between Avelin and me.

"I don't know how Avelin and I managed to make it out of there, but we did. We were starving and on the verge of death, but we had made it out.

"I curse myself to this day for my stupidity, my lack of thought, and my quest for the past. I should have remembered what my mother told me 'the past is nothing to worry about, it's the future.' So now I ask you something Balto, is the past really worth risking the future, when the past is already set in stone?"

Balto's mind was far from Elek's story. He was thinking about his son, Kodi, and where Kodi was at that exact moment. What if it had been his son Kodi, or Aleu, or Dakota? What would he have done in Elek's position? Balto could feel his heart breaking. Was it for Kodi? Or was it for Elek and his sad story?

"Balto?"

Balto began to miss home in a way he never had before. He wanted to be home and to have Jenna by his side. He wanted to have Kodi be happy and cracking jokes with his father.

"Balto?"

Kodi impregnated all of Balto's thoughts. Kodi was all that Balto could think about. He hoped that Kodi wasn't too angry with him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Balto said coming out of his swim through the pool of his own thoughts.

"Well, is it really necessary for you to know about your past, about your mother and father?"

The answer was easy for Balto, though just a couple minutes ago he would have killed the wolf before him for some answers.

"No."

Elek smiled wide and proud. He stepped forward until him and Balto were face to face, then spoke. "Then I can be proud to know that you are my brother, in soul, as well as in blood."

Balto smiled and felt slightly stupid. Here was his brother, and he couldn't even recognize him until he told him. Balto felt safe that a remnant of his blood family still existed. He wanted to know more, but knew that it was worthless to know about his past. Balto smiled and gave Elek a brotherly nuzzle.


	14. Two Bears

Somehow Boris had made it through the darkest coldest part of the night without the slightest discomfort from his belly or his mind. It had been several days since he had eaten, and just as long without a good nights rest. The exhaustion from his belly, mind, and wounds must have worn him out until he finally couldn't hold on any longer and simply passed out while the storm raged around him.

When Boris opened his eyes he could see stars up above him through the thatching of sticks that hung over him. Thin bands of red and gold from the northern lights mixed in with the stars made the snow around Boris semi-bright. He could hear the not to distant wind of the already passed storm whistling through the stunted trees before falling silent, and then dashing off again on the other side of the thicket.

Boris rolled over on his side. The cold was thick in his feathers and he wanted to see where the pup was. Maybe he had grown some sense and was going to come and keep warm with Boris?

Boris wasn't exactly sure where the pup had last been sitting, but he knew that it was just off to the left of where he was sleeping. He peered through the thin light that held the landscape before him at the spot where the pup should have been to find it empty. He moved his gaze from where the pup should have been to the other stunted trees that he could see clearly. The pup was nowhere to be seen.

Boris sat up grumbling. "Where are you?"

He sat for a moment scanning the forest in front of him with his wings folded over one another to keep the heat in. The pup wasn't where he should have been. Maybe he had gone to sleep back behind Boris where he couldn't see.

Boris fell forward and crawled out of the cove and into the light of the forest and stood up with his neck fully extended. He made a quick three-hundred-and-sixty sweep of the forest around him. Nothing. He did it again, this time making sure to take his time. The pup was nowhere to be seen.

"Boy chic?" Boris called with a wing to his mouth. He turned around and repeated the call. If the pup was out there he wasn't responding.

What if something happened to him, Boris thought? What if some dangling tree limb had fallen and knocked him out and he was buried under the snow suffocating, unable to call out for help?

The thought sent Boris wandering through the snow in no particular direction to see if he could find the young pup under a layer of snow, hopefully just sleeping.

"Boy chic" Boris continued calling.

The snow was deep within the trees and only Boris's wide feet kept him from falling through to flounder in the snow. The pup had to be around here somewhere, he comforted himself; he just had to be underneath the snow. Hopefully he was alive and well, just sleeping. But what if he wasn't? Boris had to get that thought out of his head before it consumed him and sent him to a screaming mass.

Boris tried to keep himself calm as he made zigzags back and forth through the snow calling the young pup with his wing to his beak. Boris held his wings across his chest and kept his head tucked down low to keep warm in the subzero temperature and low breeze. But as he reached one side of the thicket and started to come back he started to become frantic.

Boris began running back and forth, left and right shouting at the top of his voice.

"Boy chic!"

Where had that young pup gone?

"This is no time for games Boy chic." Boris pleaded to the light whistling of wind and twinkling of northern lights between the shadows of the trees.

Boris became beside himself with worry. The pup wasn't anywhere. He had to be someplace close. Where would he go? Boris began running towards any lump that might have marginally been large enough to conceal the pup beneath its white blanket and ripped the drift apart. He was here, Boris knew he was here.

For a full ten minutes Boris bolted around in a heated frenzy to find the pup. When he had finally tore apart every drift he could find, he stopped in the middle of the thicket to stand on his cold feet and think aloud to himself.

"Where would you have gone? I mean … where is there for you to go?" Boris put his wing to his beak and held it ever so slightly. "Where are you? He pleaded. "You have to be around here somewhere."

Boris took several steps forward to the place where he had last seen the pup. This would be the best place to search for clues. The snow covered any trace that there had ever been a creature there. Boris pushed his wing down through the snow with a crunch. There was nothing here of use to helping Boris find the grey pup.

"Where are you?" Boris pleaded aloud. Then something entered the old bird's mind that he hadn't thought of before. Something dark that the pup might have done if he felt like he was nothing and worthless. "No!" Boris yelled aloud and looked out into the barren wasteland around the thicket. "Why hadn't I been more forceful on talking to you? Now you might be out there someplace, freezing to death in a snow bank. I have to find you, if it isn't already too late."

Boris ran out into the snow and the waste under the heavenly northern lights above to search blindly for the young pup, or die trying.

* * *

The warmth surrounded the pup on ever side. There was no ice below him and no cold wind around him to blast through his fur. He felt safe and comfortable like a pup snuggled close to his mother. But where was he?

He opened his eyes and was instantly blinded by warm white fur. It was everywhere, in his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. It smothered him in a warmth he hadn't felt since the vague memories of his snow-white mother. The memories were dim and hardly there, but he could still remember her.

A second thought came over the pup. What if the pain, cold, loneliness, and hate had all been nothing more than a dream and here he was with his mother? The fur was the same color as her. He couldn't remember what his mother smelled like, but whoever this was they smelled like fish. Did his mother smell like fish? He couldn't remember.

The grey pup squirmed every so slightly, trying to break free and see if it had all just been a memory. Whoever was around him responded to his outstretched paw that pressed hard into it's side.

The warmth around the grey pup was instantly gone and he was on the snow. The sun was just coming up to the south, and the wind of the storm he had somehow lived through was beginning to die down. On the grey pup's left and right side two creatures moved in opposite directions, slowly turning around. The pup suddenly realized he was in between to large bears.

The pup yelled out and the bears leapt back in fear both yelling at the top of their lungs. The pup was utterly terrified of these two powerful creatures that stood on either side of him. He tried to keep both of them in his vision, but they were at the perfect spots so he couldn't keep them both in his sight. The grey pup threw his head back and forth at the two of them, ready to bolt away.

The bigger bear looked at the smaller one and began mumbling something. The other bear listened.

"Um, we just wanted to help you, you looked like you were cold." The smaller bear said sheepishly. "Luk say's we didn't mean to scare you."

The grey pup looked at the larger bear, then back at the smaller bear. "What's your name?"

"Me?" The smaller bear raised a paw to his chest. "My name is Muk. Muk and Luk, we're brothers. What is your name?"

The pup was still wary of the two bears and kept his gaze switching back and forth between the two. What if this was some sort of bear trick, and the second he let his guard down the bear he didn't have his eyes on would end him.

"I don't have a name."

"No name!" Muk said "Every creature must have a name. What does your mother call you?"

The grey pup felt frustrated that this stranger was making him speak what he really didn't want to say. "I'd rather not speak about this." The pup said turning away, hoping that the two bears would drop it. But then he turned right back around again remembering that he might not be able to trust these two

"Well, what are we supposed to call you?" Muk said.

Luk mumbled, making an array of hand signals to Muk. Was he trying to explain how he wanted to kill the grey pup? Explaining what pieces of meat he liked the best, and which parts were too tough for him.

Muk seemed to understand and smiled. "Luk asks if you are hungry. He also says that we have seal, and we would like to share it with you."

The grey pup was still wary. He didn't see any seal in sight, what ever seal was. But if seal was some sort of food, he could hardly resist. He didn't know how long it had been since he had eaten last; but he was sure going to know when he would eat next.

"Yeah. I'm famished." The grey pup said, then wished he hadn't said it with such enthusiasm. He still didn't know if he could trust these two bears fully. Uncle Boris had told him stories of bears and their way with words. He told the grey pup of what a quick and painful death he would receive by their paws. The pup didn't want that, but he was starving.

Luk turned his body around to where he had some seal stored in the snow and came back with a large chunk of fatty flesh. The pup hadn't seen that much meat in one place in his life, and he almost leapt atop it while it was still in the bears paw. He nearly swallowed the meat whole. The bears could have killed him and he wouldn't have cared. But by this time the pup realized that bears had no intention of hurting him. This became especially apparent when Muk brought another piece of meat. The pup nearly swallowed this to. By the third piece the pup's stomach was beginning to painfully bulge below him. It was a good pain he thought though.

"Are you full?" Muk asked.

The pup raised his front right paw up to feel his belly and how tight it was. "Yeah. I am full."

"Well, we do have more if you have room. There is just to much for us"

"More!" The pup felt astonished that these two creatures could possibly have more food than they could eat.

"Yeah, we have it buried here, and there." Muk said motioning all around him in different directions. Luk did the same motion with his paws. "So … um … what was your name again?" Muk asked

"I don't have a name, but my uncle Boris calls me - Boris!"

"Boris?" Muk asked confused. "So you are named after your uncle?"

"No." The grey pup hastily said. Somewhere out there Boris was probably looking for him. He probably would have seen that in the morning he was gone and went looking for him. But what if Boris had woke up in the night and came looking? He could be frozen in a snow bank someplace, and it would all be the pups fault. "No. My uncle calls me 'boy chic,' his name is Boris."

"I'm not sure I completely understand Boris." Muk put his paw to his chin to hold the weight of his thinking.

"My name is not Boris. I don't have a name." The pup tried to get through to them.

Luk began waving his arms and talk in mumbles. Standing and shaking his entire body like he was freezing, he then raise his right paw just over his eyes like he was looking for something.

"Oh." Muk said with a smile of understanding. "Luk says that your uncle Boris is lost, and we need to help him."

Luk mumbled a few more words than turned to Muk.

"He also says that your name is boy chic."

Luk shook his head an affirmative yes.

"Will you help me find him then?" The pup asked.

"I don't see why we shouldn't." Muk said looking to Luk for a different view. Luk shrugged his shoulders then shook his head. "Sure, I mean how hard could it be to find a Boris out here?" Muk smiled

The pup realized that maybe he wasn't going to find Boris. When he looked around him to see exactly where he was he quickly found that maybe finding Boris wouldn't be as easy as he had thought. All around the pup for as far as he could see was flat ice. It looked like there were just hundreds of miles of flat in every direction. Where was the land?

"Where, where's the land?"

Muk put his right paw back to his chin and scratched while looking through squinted eyes in one direction, then the other. "I think it's that way." He said finally pointing in one direction that didn't look any different than any other direction.

"How can you be sure?" The pup asked.

"Because I have a good sense of direction."

Luk in the meantime had been looking all around with a careful eye. He was looking at the sun, at a shadow in the snow, and raised his nose to the wind. He finally stood on his back paws and pointed in the opposite direction Muk was.

Muk saw his paw flash and stood to face him. "How are you so sure that you know where you're going?"

Luk mumbled for nearly a full minute, using his arms to illustrate some form of what he was saying. The pup looked on stupefied.

"Okay." Muk said after Luk had grown tired of talking. Muk turned in the direction that Luk had pointed and began walking like he was incredibly confident of where he was going.

The pup bound up to Muk's side. "What did he say? How do you know that this is the right way?"

"He always knows the right direction." Muk said with a smile.

The pup followed silently for nearly four miles, that's when a snow-white mountain came out of the ice ahead and began to reach for the sky. Luk had been right in his direction, and the pup was impressed.

"There's land. There's the mountain! Boris has got to be somewhere around here." The pup exclaimed when he saw the mountains, the mountains he had left.

"So where will we find this Uncle Boris?" Muk asked

"I don't know where we will find him." The grey pup confessed.

"Well I'm sure me and Luk can sniff him out. Aint that right Luk."

Luk shook his head yes and hummed a positive sound. The pup felt hopeful that they would find Boris soon, if he was still alive.

* * *

Boris stumbled through the snow and caught himself with his wings. It had been several hours since he had left the trees and begun his search. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. He didn't feel that he would die if he fell asleep; the sun was high overhead and cast great warmth through his feathers.

But Boris couldn't give up. Somewhere out there the pup was freezing and trying to live. Boris kept seeing the image that he had conjured of the pup being swept underneath a snowdrift to vanish forever. Boris knew that if that happened he would never find the pup and he would most likely die looking for him.

Boris hit himself in the head with his wing. He had to think positively. The pup was just sitting out there in front of him someplace waiting for him. He had to be. He just had to be.

Boris's eyes began to flutter as he kept on his vigil march forward. He couldn't keep going any further; it had just been too much. He kept trying to image the pup waiting patiently, but the image was working against him. It was lulling him into a false security that he could just sit for a moment and the pup would be there when he woke up.

Boris felt himself sit down in the snow. His eyes had been closed in the world of darkness within his own skull. Boris began to image the pup sitting in the snow. Then the image turned into a dream.

* * *

Luk was the first one to notice the smell floating across the snows. He raised his head, sniffed right, then left, letting the unfamiliar smell soak into him. He stopped walking after the grey pup and Muk to look around him to see if he could see where the smell was coming from.

In front of Luk the sun skimmed along the edge of a mountain. Muk and the young pup were already deep into the shadow of the mountain. But the smell wasn't coming from that direction. It was coming off to Luk's left where the wind blew in his face.

Luk stepped off of the trail that Muk and the pup had left and began walking towards the smell.

The pup was the one who noticed that Luk was no longer following him. He noticed a white bunch of fur moving off to his left and realized that Luk was walking away from him and Muk.

"I think Luk found something?" The pup said bolting into the snow towards Luk with hopes that he had found Boris.

Muk looked over his shoulder at the Luk and the young pup. He shrugged his shoulder and walked after them with a nonchalant scamper.

The grey pup pulled up next to Luk and looked up at his face. Luk looked like he was carefully studying the air in his nose. Half the time Luk had his eyes closed as his black nostrils flared in and out with his breath.

"What do you smell?" The pup asked.

Luk mumbled his nonsensical rambling. The pup could sense a tension in his voice that there wasn't before. It was a good tension like before a large animal was broke into. At least that's what the pup thought of it as.

"What did he say?" the pup turned to Muk who was just catching up to him and Luk.

"I didn't quite catch it."

Luk mumbled again, this time with annoyance in his voice at having to repeat the same thing twice.

"Oh, he says that he smells something he has never smelled before."

Luk mumbled more, turning his head to Muk so he could hear him better.

Muk smiled. "He also says that whatever the source of the smell is, it's just a little further."

"Is it Boris?" the pup said with hope.

Luk shrugged his shoulder and twisted his head slightly to show that he wasn't sure. Muk did the same thing. It wasn't what the pup was hoping for. But maybe they had found the right trail and Boris would be sitting in the snow wondering what took the grey pup so long.

The three of them walked for another minute before Luk mumbled something and Muk stopped in his tracks to watch. Luk began making slow circles over a fifty by fifty area. He held his head low to the snow and moved it back and forth like he had just got a good whack in the nose.

"What is he doing?" The pup asked impatiently. "We don't have time for this-"

"Shu-shu-shu-shush." Muk said putting a claw in front of his mouth and his paw in front of the young pups. Muk then leaned closer and began to whisper. "He smells something. It's under the snow."

"There's nothing under the snow." The pup scoffed. "Boris could be freezing, we need to keep moving."

"Shu-shu-shu." Muk said in a flurry of movements with his paws around his face and the pup's.

Luk began to make smaller and smaller circles; each time moving in half a dozen feet and swinging his nose back and forth slightly faster. His circles became tighter and tighter until he stopped on a certain spot in the middle and began digging. Luk threw the snow to the sides and pushed deep with his claws and nose until his head vanished beneath the snow. His shoulders soon followed.

Muk and the young pup looked on in a dumbstruck awe at his searching ability. Muk began to speak.

"You should see him at hide-and-seek." Muk said it loud in so that it shattered the need for absolute silence. "If you're within half a mile from his nose, you can bet that you're going to get found." Muk seemed proud and smiled as he said this.

The grey pup didn't want to sit around and watch Luk dig any longer. He wanted to get out and find Boris. He was probably sitting back in the group of trees waiting. He wouldn't be under the snow. Would he?

"He's got em. He's got em." Muk yelled running forward.

The pup had been lost in his own mind when Luk brought a frozen bird to the surface with his paws. He held it up to the light to get a better look at the creature in his paws.

The pup bound forward towards Luk. "Boris! Boris! Boris! Are you okay?"

Boris was frozen as hard as a rock. The young pup was frozen with fear that his caretaker, who might as well been his father, had froze to death. Boris was the only one who had ever taken care of the young pup, the only one who truly cared what, if anything, happened to the pup.

"I,I,is, he okay?" The grey pup asked timidly. He looked on at Luk with hope, a deep hope.

Luk looked over the frozen bird at the young pup with remorse. The bird felt frozen like a board, and silent as a windless mountain. Luk looked at Muk for the answers, or at least a good way to say it.

Muk looked back at Luk, and shrugged his shoulders slightly. He then looked at the young pup, and then lowered his eyes towards the snow.

The young pup couldn't believe it. Boris couldn't be dead. He had to be alive, he just had to be. The pup bound forward and Luk brought Boris down to meet the young pup.

Boris's blue tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. He looked peaceful, like he had just fell asleep and would be awake any moment, but his body was stiff like a board.

The young pup began to cry. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to go. Boris was the only one who had been there for him.

Muk and Luk both looked at each other with sorrowful glances before lowering their eyes. Then Boris moved.

It was a small move from his chest, possibly a single heartbeat, but the grey pup was sure he saw it. His eyes were stained with tears, but he looked at the bird that still rested in Luk's paws.

"Did you see that?" He said looking up at Luk and Muk. They looked at the pup, then at each other. Neither of them had seen anything.

"What?" Muk asked.

The pup looked frantic at Muk. He had to have seen it? The bird in Luk's paws twitched again. "That!" The pup yelled, almost jumping onto Boris.

Luk once again looked at Muk for the answer. Neither of them had seen it, whatever it was. Luk set Boris down in the snow on his back. The bird's head rolled sideways as soon as it hit the snow and his tongue stuck out. Then Boris rolled his head over the other way.

This Muk and Luk had both seen. They grabbed at each other and leapt back a half dozen feet before calming long enough to look at Boris.

"The dead have risen." Muk said with a pleading tone to Luk.

Luk mumbled and looked frightened, pointing at the bird that he had just held in his paws. "Yeah, me to." Muk agreed.

The grey pup stood over Boris's head and looked down into his closed eyes. The lids slowly opened and peaked at the blurry world around him.

"He's alive." the pup flashed a smile at Muk and Luk. The tears that graced his cheeks began to freeze solid without any replacements to keep them warm.

Muk and Luk both looked at the pup then returned reluctantly to the bird's side.

Boris felt numb and cold. Like he had been locked within a frozen cocoon until the blood in his veins almost froze solid, only to be let out at the last moment. He could feel his wings out at the sides of his body and his heart slowly beginning to come back to life. Though his feet were lost someplace below that thump that represented his heart.

Boris opened his eyes to look at the world. He could see a single grey blur in front of his face, and a voice sympathetically talking to him. Boris wanted to reach out and respond, but when the message was sent to his mouth, it didn't happen. He tried again. His tongue might have moved slightly, but he couldn't tell; his body felt very far away.

Muk laid his ear on Boris's chest. "I hear something thumping." He said looking at Luk. His eyes shifted over to the grey pup. Luk mumbled something and pumped his paws on his chest indicating his heart.

The grey pup looked anxiously at Muk. His small eyes wanting answers, the tears straining out the fear that he had. "Is he going to be okay?" He timidly asked.

Muk smiled and raised his head. "Well, I'm not any good at this, but I would say he's going to be just fine."

Even though the pup didn't receive a definite answer, he beamed with brightness at the words. "He is?"

"Oh yeah," Muk said turning away from Boris and looking at the grey pup. "We just need to keep him warm until he wakes up. He just needs some rest, and he should be fine."

Luk shook his head and mumbled confidently while smiling. He stepped forward and grabbed Boris with his left paw, then with his right, and gently lifted him from the snow. He then shifted the half limp, half frozen bird onto his shoulders where he lay with his wings and legs spread out over Luk's shoulders, his head stretched straight up Luk's neck.

Luk twisted left, then right while looking over his shoulders to see if Boris still held tight. He did, and Luk smiled at Muk.

The grey pup stood next to Luk looking up at Boris. He stared straight into Boris's eyes. They blinked open slightly and looked straight at the young pup, then closed. The pup felt better and actually let a smile grace his face.

The grey pup then bolted forward to Muk's side and took up his semi-fast pace across the ice and snow. The pup looked up at Muk. "Where are we going?"

Muk dropped a single eyebrow at the young pup and smiled. "Well, before we ran into you, we were on our way to see our mother. And I think that is where me and Luk will take you." Muk glanced over his shoulder at Luk.

"Your mother? What for? You seem to be getting along pretty well out here by yourselves."

"Well," Muk's sighed. "Me and Luk was begging mom to go to our favorite fishing place. She said we should go and spend the day fishing. We went. When we got back she was gone. There was no sign as to where she went."

The pup twisted his head and squinted his eyes before looking off across the ice in front of Muk, then back at Muk. "But you said you were going to find her. I thought you just said there was no sign?"

Muk squinted his face. "Well … yes and no."

"What? How can that be?"

"Well you see, Luk and me didn't exactly know what to do. We tried to track her, but she had swum across open leads multiple times, it was like she was trying to hide from us. So then Luk got the good idea to go back to where we were born. It seemed like a good idea. Maybe she would be there waiting for us?" Muk smiled.

A minute of silence passed before the pup slowed up to be next to Boris. Boris looked no better and didn't even flutter his eyes to show that he was alive. A rush of fear drowned the pup, but he pushed it down. His new friends said Boris would be alright.

The pup pushed forward again until he was next to Muk. He leaned over to ask Muk a question. "Where were you born?"

This question brought Muk to a standstill; like he had forgotten exactly where it was. He closed his eyes and put his paw on top of his head to scratch with his long claws. He sat on his haunches, deep in thought as his mouth began to move as he remembered the very beginning.

"Very strange creatures live there. They walk on their back legs." Muk stood on his back legs pretending to be one of the creatures standing still. He raised high above the pup. So high that the pup though Muk would fall down on him. "They also have creatures like you now that I think about it." Muk dropped down

"Like me? I mean do they look like me, exactly?"

"Yeah … … I can't think of what this place was called." Muk's face twisted again in thought. "My mother knew. She showed me and Luk a sign near this place. It had strange symbols on it."

"Like what?" The pup pushed. "Do you remember what they look like?"

"Yeah."

"Then can you draw them in the snow?"

Luk looked on at the conversation before him and watched as Muk raised his right paw with one claw out in front. He began making the strange symbols in the snow. When he finally finished he stepped away and the pup moved in to look straight down on the letters.

_**Welcome to Nome. **_


	15. Endings

So much time had passed since Balto had seen the face of his mate that she began to be just a voice and a feeling. Balto didn't like the feeling of not remembering exactly what Jenna's face looked like; and he planned to alleviate the feeling as soon as possible.

Balto didn't exactly know how many days he had been on his journey, but all the signs of fall were around him. These signs told Balto that his journey had come to an end, and a warm home waited for him someplace to the south.

Elek invited Balto back to his den to spend the night in good company before his long journey home. Elek promised that Balto would have a warm place to sleep and a full belly to rest on. Balto accepted in a heartbeat, and Elek was true to his words.

Elek introduced Balto to Avelin, his mate. She was an absolutely beautiful wolf, and if Balto wasn't already betrothed to another, he might have settled down and had a family right here. Soon after all the initial acquaintances and small talk about Balto's trip and his mate back home, Elek stepped away from the group saying, "Lets go get some food."

"That sounds good." Balto responded

Balto felt ecstatic about hunting with his brother and mate, but confused to as what they were hunting due to the lack of large game. Balto's questions were all soon answered when Elek and Avelin stepped apart from each other and began walking through the grass of a field with their noses hanging low. Balto stood for a long time watching the two walk. Avelin was the first to move.

She stopped, frozen, like her paw rested on the pan of a bear trap. She looked straight down about three feet in front of her in the grass. Then with a leap into the air to the height that her paws could have easily rested on Balto's head, she bound forward with her jaws open and paws ready to catch herself. Her head sunk below the grass, and when she reappeared she held the tail end of a twitching mouse in her jaws. She gave a grin at Balto, then crunched the mouse up in four bights and swallowed.

A few moments later Elek did the same thing and gave the same smile at Balto when he held a dead mouse in his jaws. He chewed it and smiled once again before returning his nose to the ground to search some more.

Now it was Balto's turn. He tried to mimic what Elek and Avelin were doing, head held low, body arched and ready to extend out with all the furry of his teeth flashing down on an innocent mouse.

Something scampered in front of Balto. He jumped. The mouse flashed through the grass. And Balto came up with empty jaws with Elek and Avelin laughing at him.

They both giggled like children in a school hall who had a secret about their friend. They both looked at Balto and smiled. Balto smiled back. Avelin moved closer.

"Here," she said. "Let me help you."

Avelin showed Balto some of her mouse hunting secrets, such as: waiting for the prey to stop before pouncing, using eyes to look for motion rather than nose for smell and eyes for the pounce. After a quick ten minute lesson Balto was able to catch sixteen in a one hour period. It was enough to stretch his belly and make him groggy.

When Balto looked up from the last mouse he had eaten, Avelin and Elek were sitting together in the darkness on the edge of the field. They had also had their fair share of mice and watched Balto with solemn eyes as he approached.

When Balto arrived at their side Elek stood and stepped away. Avelin followed.

Balto thought that they were heading back towards the den, but when they turned and went the other way, Balto was confused.

"Where are we going?" Balto asked with a glance back in the way he thought they should be heading.

"I want to show you something." Elek said from the front.

The three of them walked in a line up a gentle slope for ten minutes. At the end of those ten minutes the three of them spread out across a grassy knoll top that looked all the way up to the glacier at the head of the valley, and all the way down to the ocean.

The fall time northern lights began to come back. They were thin and wispy, in one long watercolor red band across the stars. A beautiful scar across the heaven.

Above Balto the stars twinkled and gasped with life and death. The land down below lit up with the stars and portrayed all the beauty of the land below.

And at that moment, Balto began to think about Kodi and Jenna, but mostly about Kodi. He missed his son's laugh and gentle child-like voice. Balto wanted to hear about all the stories that had happened that summer while he was in search of a past that he really didn't need to know. He wanted to hear about Dakotas's mischievous ways. He wanted to know how Aleu and her knew brood were copping. He wanted to know about Jenna, wanted to feel her fur, hear her voice, and listen to her heartbeat. He wanted to tell Jenna about being grandparents. What if one of his son's had had pups while he was gone? He had to get back to find out what had happened during the summer.

A single tear rolled down Balto's face and off his muzzle. At that same moment Elek raised his head to the sky and let out one of the most beautiful howls Balto had ever heard. Avelin quickly joined in next to him with an equally beautiful howl that matched keys with Elek's exactly. Balto raised his head high, the memory of his family flowing through his veins, and his heart, and howled with his brother over and over again.

* * *

Morning came strong and quick over the mountains to the west. To quick for Balto who had spent most of the night howling with his brother atop the hill across the valley. Balto threw a paw over his eyes and tried to slink back down into sleep. But his fur roasted in the sun and he found himself quickly thinking about getting up and finding a shady place to hopefully finish sleeping.

He lowered his paw and searched around for a shady spot nearby. He then remembered that the only trees that would provide shade were at the bottom of the valley next to the little brook. There might have been an outcropping of rocks nearby, but before he could look a voice beckoned him.

"I see you're awake." Elek's voice came from behind Balto.

Balto turned his head. Elek just finished squeezing his hips out of the den and looked at Balto. He stretched his back and his legs before meandering over next to Balto to sit. "Looks like a beautiful day."

Balto looked up the valley through his squinted eyes for the first time. The sun didn't throw off such a rough light like he had thought; and was actually calm and warm and providing the right shading to the landscape of high pinnacles, low hanging swooping valleys, and glacial walls. The sun brought out every detail to the valley in great form.

"It is beautiful." Balto stated in measured tones. "I've never seen such a beautiful place."

A long silence rested between the two of them. Balto looked up the valley with awe-inspired eyes that sucked in as much beauty as he could. Elek sat with a proud grin across his face. A grin he hadn't had since the day his pup's fist stepped into the world.

"Do you want to know what I know," Elek said breaking the quite moment. "About what happened to mom and dad? For if you want to know, I will tell you."

Balto stood as if a dinner guest had improperly conducted himself, and stepped away from his sleeping area. He looked up the valley towards the sun, and down the valley towards the sea. Balto moved around Elek until he stood down the valley from him. They looked into each others eyes, one waiting for the other to speak. Balto remembered Kodi.

Balto flashed a grinned at his brother and began to step away. "You know, I wanted nothing more than to know what happened to me as a kid when I started this out. But right now I want nothing more than to go home and see my sons, my daughters, and my lovely mate." Balto began to step farther away. "So right now I'm going to start on my way home. I want to make things right by apologizing to my son, and being with him and my family as much as I can so they don't have to go through a life, wondering about the past."

Elek flashed a toothy grin at Balto who was already turned away and walking at a brisk pace down the valley side towards home.

"Hey Balto." Elek called.

Balto turned and looked back for the last time at his brother.

"Will you come back someday to see my children?"

Balto grinned and laughed slightly. Elek let his grin show through. And together the two of them looked on at each other with a respect, and love, of a family reunited.

* * *

The journey home to Nome would take less time than it did to get to the valley, but it would still take several weeks of hard travel to get there. The journey would lead him south; back down around the town that had removed him with such force, and out west along the north shore. From there he would travel west across the tundra for several days until finding a deep valley that would lead him south to Nome. Balto had personally never seen the valley that would end up just ten miles north of Nome in the foothills, yet he knew about. It was something he had learned in his early days in Nome looking up on a map of Alaska pinned up on the side of the telegraph building wondering where he had come from. And that valley to the north somehow drew him. Of course the map didn't stay long in the wind, but Balto had learned much from it while it was there.

Balto swept around the town in the darkness of the night, always being sure to keep a quarter mile distant. The smell of smoked meat almost sent Balto sneaking into the darkness to seek out it voluptuous odor. He could hardly wait to raid the butcher's trash back at Nome. Yet the thought of all those humans and dogs chasing after him in the darkness with guns didn't sit well with Balto and he continued on around the town without two sniffs of a tail.

Balto rested for the night when he was well out of sight, and smelling distance, of the town. He rested until dawn when he started up again. Steadily trotting every closer to Nome and his family.

The signs of winter were all around Balto as he strolled along the sandy shore to the west. In the little gullies where spring floods would gush water, snow packs an inch or so deep built up. With no sunlight reaching them, and the temperature not rising to a high enough temperature to melt them, they began to turn to miniature glacier, and would stay until the next spring. Every morning more and more frost covered the dead grass and flowers, and would stay longer and longer into the day. At night the temperature dropped to freezing and below. And every morning when Balto woke up he could feel the frost in his fur and see the ice building up on the sides of the tundra ponds. Balto knew that he had to hurry home. He had to hurry through those mountains if he was ever to reach Jenna and Kodi before the snow fell.

It was about two weeks since he had seen the town when the storm rolled in.

Balto woke early in the morning. He had found a little cove underneath some rocks along the beach where three large seals with huge tusks had spent the winter catching fish and sleeping. Late in the night Balto had crept along, being especially sure not to bother the seals, and found the rock overhang to quickly drift to sleep.

When Balto awoke snow covered the ground. At least six inches of snow where the wind had blown it away. Where Balto laid a snow bank had covered him in the little overhang while sleeping. Balto burst through the snow bank and winced at the icy grip of the wind.

The seals that had been along the beach when he arrived were long gone, lost somewhere in the thrashing waves which menaced about just feet behind Balto.

A pounding wave sent water flying, and Balto scrambling up the banks through ankle deep sea-water. The wind at the top of the bank battered Balto's fur, driving snow down into his recently wetted coat. On top of the snow, wind, and cold, the storm picked up so much snow that a virtual whiteout surrounded Balto.

To travel through the storm, Balto might as well tried and swim through the ocean. He might do better with that. But standing around with his fur flapping across his face sure wasn't going to change the fact that he was standing in a storm with cold wet paws.

Balto stepped forward with a timid step and began walking. He knew that if he kept the sound of the ocean on his right he would be alright.

Balto walked along the bank of the ocean with his right ear cocked in that direction. He made sure to look off towards his left every once in a while in hopes of catching a glimpse of the mountains through the storm.

The mountains rested just five short miles away from the ocean across a flat tundra of lakes, intersected every now and then by small gullies that had been filled with snow the previous days. The mountains rose tall the instant they left the tundra, to a height of seven or eight thousand feet. Balto knew the mountains would be treeless, and with the storm, be covered in ten or twenty feet of snow. Balto just hopped that the pass he would have to cross wouldn't have that much snow on it.

After a quarter of a mile the thought changed thought. What if his missed the valley? It was a possibility that he could just stroll on by and never see hide-nor-hair of a river entering the sea. The wind and snow would make sure of that. But also the cold working on his mind would.

Balto stopped before he went any further and set his paws all together under his body in an effort to keep them warm. He sat with his back to the wind and faced inland. He was between a rock and a hard place.

On one paw he could keep bumbling around through the storm with hopes of finding a wide river. Or he could sit tight and wait for the storm to end, and in the process freeze himself to death without shelter.

Balto then got the idea that he could stay in the same place, but whenever he got cold, he would run and jump and bound until he became warm again. Balto liked his own idea to stay put instead of possibly wasting his time backtracking to find the valley he missed.

For ten minutes Balto sat in the snow. Then his paws began to ache and he took off running back towards the east, then he turned and went back towards the west. His ears and face became cold doing this for just a minute and his paws didn't seem any warmer. The only thing he had accomplished was make his face colder.

Balto began to search for a place he could escape the wind. He searched through squinted eyes on the beach below him but found nothing, not even a single black rock. Balto was sure that there would be nothing inland except half frozen lake he could fall through and freeze himself even faster.

Maybe he could dig down into the snow and curl himself up into a ball like huskies and wolves did in cold weather. Balto dug with his paws down, but the snow here was only an inch deep. Balto stepped away and looked for another spot. Bare rock showed through and he knew that snow would be in short supply there. Twenty more times he walked around, always within earshot of the ocean, and each time he could find a spot that was deep enough. Maybe he could go back and find the place he was? That seemed impossible. Balto knew he would never find that spot in this weather.

So Balto sat back on his legs, carefully lifting one every now and then to get the cold away from them. He shifted his shoulders and tried to make his fur thicker. He closed his eyes for long periods, but when he almost fell face first into the snow, he stopped. He had to stay awake so he wouldn't freeze. He had to stay awake.

An hour passed, then another. Why had he left the snow bank he had been entombed in? Balto couldn't find an answer as to why he had left the safety of the snow bank. Maybe something had subconsciously drawn him out into the storm. But for what? To die? Or maybe he had just been foolish.

It was then, sitting there in the snow, half as stiff as a board, that something happened. Balto could hear it as clear as day, and just as brightening as sunshine on his shoulders. But was it there?

Balto slowly raised his head up; the snow that had formed on his shoulders fell away, and listened to see if he could hear it again. He did. A howl.

The howl sent shivers down his spine that shook his entire body, causing all the snow on him to fall away. This howl was different than any other howl he had heard. He had heard this howl once, he knew he had. Maybe he had heard it twice. But Balto knew he had heard it before.

Balto thought back to his brother's howl. This howl burst past the line of beauty that his brother and mate had had on their howl. Theirs just couldn't compare to what floated through Balto's ears now.

Balto stood and turned his head slightly to get a bearing on where the howl came from. It was calling Balto; he could feel it. It wanted him to come and feel safe, and Balto needed to feel safe. So Balto stepped forward through the snow heading towards where he thought the howl came from.

The storm seemed to have worsened since Balto had sat to rest. It blew with awesome fury and blinded every step that Balto took forward. The world became just a blank canvas, with no up, no down, no left, no right.

The howl stopped, but Balto continued on to where he thought he had heard it last. He knew that he might have just been walking in a great circle, but he also knew he had to find that howl no matter the cost.

The storm surged harder and more violent. It battered Balto's fur, driving snow down into his pores and chilling him to the bone. The wind threw itself and the snow it had picked up into Balto's side with such rage that at times it nearly threw Balto over onto his side. He wanted to hurt the storm, bite it back, grab it by the throat a choke the life from it. If only he could get to the throat of a wind and do it he wouldn't hesitate the least.

Time past with such haste that Balto thought he had only gone a mile or so. When in fact he had gone more than five miles. It was the wind blowing at his back that had pushed him with such speed. Always blowing him forward towards some mystical area. Nonetheless Balto didn't notice that side winds that came in and pushed him whenever he got off course. Balto's mind was too fatigued from the storm to recognize the things going on around him.

Of course Balto did notice when the wind stopped cold. Like the world had quit spinning, and the storm had vanished, everything came to a standstill; and the snow that had been in the air carelessly floated down. Balto felt warm for the first time in several hours. But that was something far from his mind as he stood face to face with a tree.

Balto recognized the tree instantly as the one he had been left under as a pup. It was now dead and only held the bare sticks that at one time had been green limbs. Most of the bark had been blown away piece by piece; and the winds of a hundred storms had blown it sideways two or three feet. Nevertheless it was the tree that Balto knew, the tree from his very first memory. It was here that he had been left as a pup.

A surge of questions flew through Balto's mind. Would the tree hold the answer? Did she come back for me? Who? Why? Where? When? On account of what? Every one of them right in the front of his mind. But somewhere in the back he could hear the voice of his brother talking to him. "The past doesn't matter, it's the future."

With those quite words all the questions that had flooded him died. Balto looked up at the tree, not as a beacon for answers, but as a place for an end.

Balto stepped forwards towards the tree with soft feet. He stopped with his nose just two feet away from the tree and raised his right paw up slowly. His paw stopped for a moment in mid air. Then he pushed it forward onto a grey crack smeared with some bark under his far right toe.

"It began here," Balto said. More for himself than for anybody else. "And it ends here." Balto set his paw down and looked up at the tree one more time. "Now I am going to go home to be with my family."

And with that Balto moved slowly around the tree and headed off into the silence of the stalled storm towards where he thought the mountains were, no longer with cold in his fur, or thoughts of death on his mind. He was free.

As Balto vanished into the falling snowflakes the wind began to pick up. Two strong visible gusts filled with particles of drifting snow blew in towards the tree, where they stopped and began to take form beside each other.

The first gust of wind began to take shape as the second one arrived at the base of the tree. It turned a deep white, with the mistiness of a spirit. Legs stretched out below the spirit, and the head billowed up from below, until a white wolf with dark eyes and black pointed ears sat looking out across the tundra where the half-breed had vanished. Aniu

The other spirit came next to the first and turned to a sand colored brown. Legs stretched out below, and a head stretched up above, forming white covered eyes through the snow. Until another creature sat by the white wolf. Nava.

They both looked through the snow at the spot where Balto had vanished with extreme silence. Then Aniu spoke.

"My son is strong." She said with high reverence.

Nava turned his head slightly. "Yes, his mind and body are strong, but he has much to learn before he will be truly strong. Though in time he shall become wise. He understands that you are no longer a necessity to him in life, and he can now make his own choices, and use his own powers."

Aniu bowed her head down and closed her eyes in understanding. For a moment the two were in silence.

"Then why does my son not recognize you?"

Nava turned his head away from Aniu, then looked straight at her with his blind white eyes. "Because I have grown old and blind and no longer retain the form of my youth … He does not recognize me because I have lived in a false character for so long, that I myself might not recognize me. It is a shame that I could never be forgiven for" Nava turned his head away, obviously abashed of something. Then a grin flashed across his face as he returned his gaze slowly to Aniu. "But all the shame in the world could come down on me and I would have faced it boldly. I would have taken it in stride for my love of a white wolf."

Aniu grinned at Nava with puppyish love in her dark eyes.

Nava grinned through his old teeth and haggard fur. His eyes flashed from blind whiteness to a brushfire orange that could sear the coldest ice. Then his fur changed in a dramatic flush to slate black, and a new creature sat before Aniu. A dog.

Aniu and Nava both grinned and giggled at one another before the wind brushed up around them and consumed them in the same cloud they had formed in. They both fluttered away into the gently falling snow, one cloud following another, until only their laughter remained as a gently echo across the land.


	16. Home in Nome

Weeks had passed since Boris and the grey pup had been rescued by two polar bears, Muk and Luk, on the ice several hundred miles to the north. In that time the grey pup had dramatically changed in the physical sense. He now had the body of a teenager around the age of fifteen. The grey pup's body had at least doubled in size, if not tripled. He still had his belly sucked up against his back in starvation, and his ribs stuck through his fur. His fur had lost every puppyish look that he had ever had; it was now rough and matted together with the lack of care. It stuck out at the sides in every direction it could possibly go like an animal. The pups face had also grown thin and long. His matted fur came down past his ears in muttonchops fashion, and on the tip of his chin he had a tuft of fur that had recently ruffled out from his face.

Snows that would have long ago given him problems no longer applied to him as he brushed through the slightly deeper than his ankle snow on his way towards the top of the hill.

Behind him came two polar bears, side by side with a large plump bird across the larger one's shoulders. They had hardly changed since the grey pup had met them, although they had taken a special attraction to Boris.

Boris, who sat on Luk's shoulders, had grown plump and happy with the aid of the two polar bears feeding him. Even though Boris should have been as happy as a clam, he never showed any of the cheerfulness of his life with Muk and Luk. Maybe it was the way that Muk and Luk always babied Boris and called him their uncle? Boris didn't need to have more young, lost, animals to hang around his neck with their problems. Nevertheless, what could it hurt?

The grey pup ran forward to the top of the hill; just a couple dozen more yards and he would crest the top of the hill. Maybe over this hill he would see a future home, that was if the humans in the town would let him become one of them? Whatever humans were.

In the days after Boris had been nursed to health he learned of what the plan was. Boris instantly objected to the idea of going to a town filled with hateful dogs, hateful humans, and many strange things that the pup wouldn't understand. He proposed the idea of going and finding another wolf pack with the promises that this time it would be different. The grey pup didn't want that. He wanted to go and see if the other half of his genes would accept him.

For days they traveled South. Boris riding Luk like a giant horse so he wouldn't have to expend any energy on walking. Even when Boris felt that he had the energy to walk, they wouldn't allow it. Boris needed to rest and get better.

"But' I'm already better! I need to walk for a while!" Boris protested one morning when Muk set Boris on Luk's back.

"But we don't want our Uncle Boris getting sick from cold feet." Muk said touching Boris's feet with his furred paw.

Boris tried to slide off the side of Luk's back, and was instantly caught by a paw that replaced him. "Let me go!" Boris ordered. "I want to walk!" Boris slapped the paw that held him and it slide from around his belly and fell into the snow.

Boris yelled out at the two bears in a smattering of half Russian, half English until his lungs hurt and he stood in front of the bears. They both whimpered and held their paws just below their chins with sad puppy eyes. Luk mumbled.

"He … says that … you don't like us anymore." Muk said with tears flowing out of his eyes and his breathes being sucked in in quick jerks.

Boris looked at the two whimpering bears, then lowered his head. "Fine, let's go."

Boris raised his wings in defeat. Muk leapt at the chance and had Boris settled across Luk's back in just a moment.

All the while that they traveled south Boris told stories of humans. Every night he would sit long into darkness telling of how humans would dig holes in search of a metal that there was little of. He told of their hunting, and how humans hunted with such ferocity that they killed for the pleasure of killing. Sometimes they would leave most of a carcass lying where they had used their bang stick to bring it down. Boris also told of how around human villages, wolves didn't exist. They were too afraid to be around these humans, and the grey pup should have the same attitude.

The grey pup grinned at the sounds of all that meat lying out in the snow with nobody guarding it and nobody out to get it. The grey pup couldn't wait until he got to this human village. He just hoped that maybe the humans wouldn't mind his presence.

There was something else the grey pup wanted. He hid it from Boris, it just didn't seem right to speak of it with him. But he couldn't tell what it was that he wanted. It was a different kind of longing. The grey pup longed for a home, affection from friends, and somebody of his own species to talk with, but he also longed for something else. When he tried to think of what it might be, he found a hole in the center of his chest where his heart was. If only he knew what could fill the void.

The grey pup crested the peak of the hill and looked down on things he had never seen before. They were square with straight edges, and belched smoke from straws in their hats. They were like rocks set in perfect order on the edge of a large pool that had frozen solid. Coming in and out of the town the grey pup could see trails; made by what, he didn't know. Maybe it was the humans who had built these things and set them in the order that they were in? If that was the case, the humans that Boris spoke of had to be taller than any tree the grey pup had ever seen.

The grey pup turned his tale towards the town and recoiled back down the hill towards Muk, Luk, and Boris. The idea of trying to find his place amongst the dogs of giants just didn't seem like the best of ideas right now.

He slid up next to Luk, panting his brains out from excitement, fear, and hope. Boris quickly dismounted Luk and landed on the snow next to the grey pup and threw a wing over the panting pup. "What did you see?"

The grey pup was a flurry with words. " Hill … town … giants … idea." Every word the pup said came out through his mind faster than his mouth could carry them.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Boris said, calming the pup to silence. "Your mouth may be fast, but it isn't that fast."

The grey pup let several long breathes flow through his lungs before continuing. "I saw Nome, I think."

Muk's ears perked up. "Did you say you saw the town?"

The grey pup shook his head yes.

"Come on Luk, mom's got to be around here somewhere." Muk waved Luk on with a paw above his head.

Both Muk and Luk walked forwards towards the edge of the hill and over down towards the town. The grey pup sat down to get completely rested before following after.

"You know boy-chick, we could forget about the human thing altogether, and instead head back and find a wolf pack? I think you would personally be better suited with them."

The grey pup looked slowly up at Boris. Boris had been saying the same thing for the entire trip. He had tried to enter a wolf pack, and in the process almost died. This was something different. This was another chance on another side of his genes. He had to give this a try before he would head back out into the mountains and wilderness to possibly die.

Boris could see by the cold look in the pup's eyes that he had grown weary of being told that he should go out and find another wolf pack. The grey pup obviously wanted to try this, and Boris couldn't stop him.

A long silence persisted between the two of them before the pup stood and stepped away from Boris. "Why don't we catch up to Muk and Luk?"

Boris shook his head. "I suppose we should."

Together they both walked shoulder to shoulder up the hill. They crested it at the same time and looked out across the town in silence for what seemed hours.

It had been a long time since Boris had been to a town. Of course he was only a young bird, still in the nest when he was there. Yet, in some ways it was nice to be back. There would be fish within easy reach, and enough meat for the young pup to keep happy and fat for months, years possibly. Boris just hoped the humans would accept him.

"They're called buildings." Boris said looking at the grey pup. "And the clouds coming out of the chimneys are called smoke."

The grey pup had a look of hollowness on his face as he looked once again at the town. His gaze then fell on the two bears who had already reached the bottom of the hill and were both walking towards the ocean. He watched the two bear walk across the flat tundra, across several of the trails that lead out of the town, and out onto the ocean ice.

"We better find some cover for tonight before we go into town tomorrow." Boris said, his face turned towards the sky where dark clouds began to come down from the north. The clouds were filled with heavy snow, cold, and wind. They would be in town just after sunset.

The grey pup walked down the hill, quickly followed by Boris who waddled along after him. The pup kept his eyes turned over on the town. He felt like he was waiting for something; like something was about to happen. For good or ill he didn't know.

They both reached the bottom of the hill and it happened. It entered the grey pup's nostrils and almost flattened him right where he stood. Meat perforated the air with its delectable smells; so thick that the grey pup could almost taste them, could almost feel them sliding down his throat.

"Do you smell that?" the grey pup asked with a pleased glare to his voice.

Boris raised his head and sniffed the air. He could smell it to. "Yeah, but we better not go and interfere with their food. They might not like it"

The grey pup could see the wisdom in this. If there was one thing he would fight for it would be a scrap of food . He knew that going into a strange place to steal food from creatures he had no idea about was foolish.

The grey pup turned his head and continued on his search to find a place to sleep that would keep him out of the weather. It had only been a few minutes of searching when he came upon something large and wooden that came to a peak just in front of him.

"Is it a tree, of some sort?" the grey pup motioned towards Boris who came walking up beside him.

"No." Boris responded. "It's what the humans call, a boat."

The grey pup looked back up at the boat. "What is it used for?"

Boris took a breath in as if he were trying to figure that out for himself. "The humans use it for traveling over the water."

"Why don't they just swim?"

Boris sighed. "Because … well ­- I don't know why they don't swim."

"Huh." The pup said unimpressed by Boris's knowledge of these humans. Had other things he said been falsified in order to try and get him to instead join a wolf pack?

Boris stepped forward with his keen eyes to examine the boat. He held his wing to his chin and looked up at the boat with a single rueful eye. "I don't think anybody uses it anymore. So we could probably spend a night in it and nobody would care."

The grey pup didn't say anything. He stepped forward and around the left side of the boat through the wind-packed snow. All the while he watched the boat as if it were about to attack him; or do something strange.

The grey pup stopped in the snow and looked back at Boris who stood just three feet behind him. "How do you think we get up?"

Boris pointed a wing forward with an outstretched feather towards a large wide plank with snow across it. "That will probably help us."

The grey pup smiled stupidly and stepped towards the bottom of the plank through the crunchy snow until he stood at the bottom looking up. He could see the decking of the boat that had been cleared of snow from powerful winds. It had remarkably nice boards, considering the fact that the rest of the boat was half gone. The building that sat in the center of the boat looked in rougher shape than the deck. The grey pup could clearly see holes in the walls of the little building, and the ceiling was falling down with rot. Snow filled it, but maybe they could still us it as a place to sleep.

The grey pup climbed the old plank that bent unexpectedly under his weight. He stopped halfway up the plank when he heard a loud crack and thought he was going to end up in the snow. When nothing happened he continued cautiously up the plank and onto the deck.

The deck of the boat was tilted more than the pup thought it had. But beggars can't be choosers. He stepped over towards the little building and looked inside. Snow filled the floor of the room like he thought.

The grey pup looked over towards Boris who now stood on the deck and gave him a sour look. Boris walked towards the back of the boat and the grey pup moved towards the front.

The front of the boat had old boxes strewn about. Some were broken, while other seemed to be in absolutely perfect shape. The grey pup sniffed at these boxes. They all smelled of trees and things he had never smelled. Hejumped on one of the boxes and put his front feet on the railing to look over at the town. In that town animals like him walked and breathed. They talked with one another about things he probably wouldn't understand; but he hoped he would eventually.

Boris came walking from around the other side of the small building and walked towards the grey pup with his wings behind his back. He forced a grin onto his face and looked at the pup. "At least it's better than the forest?"

The pup looked back at the town. Soon he would go there. "Yeah, I suppose it is."

Boris sighed and came yet closer. He jumped with his little legs and flapped his wings once, almost crashing into the young pup on the box. "Maybe they will be nice to you here."

"Maybe," the pup said annoyed. "They will like me." Yet the grey pup didn't quite believe that he would be welcomed with open paws, so he didn't try and let his hopes get ahead of himself.

The grey pup watched the town for a long while, all the time trying to think of what he would say, how he would act; and especially what they would do. His little mind came up with thousands of different possibilities and options. Anything could happen. But he kept returning to the idea that they would run him, Muk, Luk, and Boris out of town for good.

Boris grew tired of looking at the lights of the town in the coming cold that chafed his feathers. "Maybe you should come in before the wind picks up and the storm hits?"

The grey pup had been too lost in thought, and jerked at his voice. "No, I'll be fine." He looked towards the clouds that formed above him. "Just a little while longer."

Boris left the grey pup's side and waddled across the deck to the little building. Inside the little building snow filled the majority of the room, all except the back corners that were farthest from the broken ceiling. Nevertheless, Boris felt sleep tugging at his eyes and set himself smack down in the middle of the snow pile to sleep.

Sleep came fast for Boris, andthe soundof hissnoringechoed out of the little building, across the deck, and into the pup's ears.

More time passed and the wind of the storm began to batter the boat with steady intensity. It whistled through the holes and zipped across the semi smooth wood with lightning force. Soon snow would begin to fall and the wind would then be full of tiny razors that cut the flesh.

The pup still sat with his eyes glued on the town. In the yellow lantern light of the closest building he could see the wind picking up snow from the darkness and swirling it around the corner under the light. The grey pup knew that it was getting to be about time that he step off the railing of the boat and go sleep with Boris before he ended up with a nose full of sharpice.

The grey pup turned on his heels and stepped off the boxes he had been sitting on for some time. He hit the deck with a thud and stepped forwards towards the small building when he heard crying. It froze him in his tracks. The pup stepped closer to the building to see if it was Boris weeping about something. But when he looked in, Boris lay sprawled out on a large pile of snow with his fat belly towards the sky with the sounds of dying animals coming from his mouth.

The raise in the voice of whimpers came again. This time the grey pup pinpointed it to the right side of the boat. He stepped closer with careful paws to see who it was, though he already had a good idea who the cries belonged to.

Muk and Luk sat huddled together against the side of the boat. They seemed to be holding each other in a hug, locked together by their claws. They whimpered uncontrollably. At times it was just a steady grumble, but then it would rise up until one of them reached his head to the sky like he was about to howl, then Muk would let out a wailing cry of, "Mmmmmmmmmmooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmm." It was utterly pitiful and heart wrenching.

"What's wrong?" The pup called down when their crying had subsided down to a gentle hum.

Both Muk and Luk looked up like they had been caught doing something they shouldn't. For a moment they both looked up in silence, then at one another, and then up again. Luk then mumbled something and Muk translated it. "He says, that we went, walking, and looking for sign, of mom, and couldn't find any. We don't know where she is."

The pup felt for these two bears and tried to comfort them with his words."Well, I wouldn't worry about it to much. I mean, maybe she's just late getting here. Give it a few days." the grey pup tried to comfort from just above them.

They looked up at the young pup with hopeful eyes that began to dry; and suddenly the pup felt that maybe he shouldn't have given them so much hope. The pup smiled at them, and they smiled back.

"Do you think?"

"Well, err … yeah of course. I bet she's on her way right now. You just need to wait. It might be a few days. I'm sure she wouldn't just leave you two out here on your own on purpose."

Mumbles came from behind the pup inside the little building. A cranky Boris stepped out into the cold and wind and threw his wings around his body. "Ahh it's cold." He stepped forward across the deck and looked at the grey pup. "What is all the noise out here about?"

"Well Muk -"

"Oh Boris. It's horrible." Muk said from below. "Me and Luk went looking for mom. We looked everywhere and couldn't find her. We just know something bad has happened." Muk came to his feet, and Luk stood by his side. "Boris, what do you think we should do?"

Boris looked to the pup for advice.

The pup looked at Boris and began slow. "Well, I told them that maybe they should just wait a few days. Maybe their mom just got, you know, hung up." The grey pup shrugged his shoulders and turned his head slightly sideways.

Boris shook his head. "Yeah, just give it a few days. I'm sure that she will show up."

Muk looked with his teary eyes up into Boris' eyes. Boris could see that Muk and Luk were both really hurting and in need of comfort. Boris opened his wings to the frigid air. "Why don't you two come up here and sleep with me?"

A long grin spread across Muk's face, as did Luk's. With the quickness of a cat in a thunderstorm, they both bolted to the plank and climbed up. The plank bended dreadfully under both their weight, but managed not to break. They hit the deck at full speed and made a beeline straight for Boris.

Boris could see what was coming and threw up his wings and began to shout, "Sssssssstttttttttooooo-." When he was crunched under Muk, and run over by Luk.

The grey pup leapt out of the way of what looked like a full fledged claw and fang fight. Boris screamed from somewhere inside the rolling tangle of fur for help. Muk and Luk both cried and whaled to one another like dying animals.

Now was his chance. Boris would be tied up for a long time with these two broken bears to really care where he went. Now he could head into town and see if he could rustle up some of that delicious smell that he had caught floating on the breeze.

The grey pup stepped closer to the tangle of fur and feather and began to talk. "Boris? Boris?"

The pup heard a muffled "What." followed by possibly Russian, or hair trying to be spit out.

"I'm going to take a little walk. I'll be back in just a minute." The pup turned without another word, or chance for Boris to step out and tell him anything.

The grey pup bolted down the plank and hit the snow running. He moved around the back of the boat and listened to the bears crying and Boris yelling in Russian and trying to escape their deathtrap. He only listened for a second before pushing on along the ice that hugged the shore on his way to the town.

The town came quick on his run. The pup stopped one more time to look back at the boat and see if he could see Boris looking around for him. There was no sign that a single creature lived out away from the town other than his prints that snaked back away from him towards the boat.

The pup pushed on towards the town. It was only a couple hundred more feet before he hit the first building that looked black and uninhabited on the edge of the ocean ice. The windows were dark and dirty, and the corner of the roof looked like it leaked and could fall down at any moment. Along the edges of the building, stacked in great piles that reached almost to the window, wood was stacked. It reached all around the building and looked untouched by the snows that covered it.

The pup stepped close to the building and looked up at it with a careful eye. It was simply amazing. These large things were made out of wood, out of trees. And these humans were able to put it all together to make these forms. How were they able to do it?

There was a thud like something had been dropped on a hollow wood floor. The pup sprawled out, ready to run like mad in an instant. More lighter thuds followed like drunken steps across a floor. There was a cough, and a sneeze; then someone opened a door with a rusty squeak just around the corner from the young pup.

The grey pup bolted away from where he stood for the opposite corner of the building. He slid around the corner and peeked his right eye back around the woodpile towards the human that came.

Boris had been right; they stood on their back feet all the time. This human carried some light that hung just below his front paw; and his paw, it wasn't really a paw at all. There was something different about it.

The humans stepped around the corner with a light in his right hand and coughed into his clenched left fist. He stepped foolishly, kicking himself in the right heel and almost tripping face first into the snow. After almost falling he put his left hand up on the boards of the building and set the lamp down next to his feet. He blundered with his right hand in his pocket for a bottle of booze he had put in there; when he pulled it just free of the lip of his pocket he fumbled it and dropped it, smashing it to a hundred bits.

The human cursed at the bottle and swung at it with his left hand; causing him to fall over in the snow on his side. He cursed more under his breath before standing up. He halfheartedly grabbed an armful of wood, making sure to keep his shoulder against the building so he wouldn't fall, and returned to the inside of the building.

After the human had left the grey pup stepped back out from behind the corner. The human had been an odd … well, thing; and the grey pup wanted to find out more about him. But since the human had vanished back into the building, the interest of the strange light he had left brought the pup's curiosity to peak.

He stepped every closer, and ever carefully towards the light. When he got within a foot of the light he could feet a heat dancing off the little flame and onto his nose. It was incased within some sort of clear bubble that kept the grey pup from getting close to it.

The pup had been so wondered at this piece of steel and glass that he didn't see the glow behind him on the log ends against the building. When he did see it, it amazed him. All the colors of the northern light cast their glow across the ends of the logs. Each one changing and moving as the lantern flickered and moved.

The pup stepped closer to the light until his shadow blackened the center of the glow. He looked at the glass bottle that the human had dropped and broke on the snow. He back-stepped away from the light, and as he did the bottles lit up and glowed.

"Do they make the lights?" the pup said looking up towards the stars in the sky. A glimmering red band of the northern lights twisted once above him to show that they still existed. "So where do the humans have the light?"

His question would go unanswered as he heard the man inside the building sliding his feet over the floorboards. He would be at the door in just a moment.

The pup bolted further into town. He wanted to discover more about these humans and their strange ways.

He kept to the shadows of the buildings as he moved. There didn't seem to be humans or dogs on the streets, but he didn't want to take any chances that maybe someone was watching him from the same shadows he hid in.

The pup hadn't gone more than a hundred yards into the town and he felt like he knew everything about these humans. He had peeked into several windows, most of them remained black. Yet from some windows he could see fires burning in rock fireplaces. There didn't seem to be any humans or dogs in any of the rooms.

Then the grey pup saw his first dog. It was in an unusually small house in the center of town with bright yellow siding. The dog looked half the size of the grey pup and slept in a chair near a large box that had a glowing red hole in it and wood in a box nearby. The dog looked puny and weak, but that didn't mean there were possibly bigger dogs around.

The pup moved on down the street with the memory of his initial mission into the town came back. He had to find out where that wonderful smell came from and see if he could get some of it. The pup let his nose lead him this way and that until the smell absolutely drove him nuts. He had to be getting close, possibly just another hundred feet, or maybe closer.

The grey pup pushed on with his nose high in the air through the darkened street. He had to find the source of the smell and glutton himself into a stupor. He needed to know what a full belly felt like, since he had never had one.

Coming around a green painted fence, the grey pup could see what appeared to be a whole moose hanging by a block and tackle above a small alley. It made his mouth water and his heart skip. If only he were taller he could get up and get some of that meat. The head and skin of the moose had been removed and placed somewhere else. Probably one of the strange human customs. But how could they remove the skin, intestines, and head with such precision? The humans didn't have any claws; and it didn't look like they had really sharp teeth. And even if they did have those, how was it so precise?

The pup stepped under the large carcass and looked up with greedy eyes. "How can I get up there?"

The beast hung at least six feet in the air, with it's front feet three feet above the snow. Their weren't any walls or any other thing that he would be able to use to get up to it nearby. So how did the humans? Lying in that, the grey pup would find the answer.

Following the hind feet up to where they were tied together, he followed the rope up through the tangle of wood and metal and down a long piece that stretched to a hook on a nearby wall. The rope coiled around the hook in what looked like a dozen different ways. Looping out, then in, then out again, until the rope ended in a frozen coil left on the snow.

The pup looked at the coil of rope on the snow, and the coil wrapped around the hook. This was what kept the moose in the air, and that was the key to getting the moose down to eating level.

He grabbed the rope with his teeth and began tugging at the knot. He tugged harder and harder, and began growling in his throat. His feet slid forward in the snow as he pulled. He began jerking on the rope with all his bodyweight, making his teeth hurt. The rope began to slip from the hook with every thrust the pup made. His mouth watered as his eyes moved from the rope to the swinging carcass. All the food he could eat. All of it within his reach with just a few more pulls.

Suddenly the pup's side caved in and his face raced towards the snow. He hit the snow and rolled over to see what had hit him. A black and white husky about his size stood with bared teeth and a malevolent grin across his face. He stood ready to attack and throw all his weight towards the grey pup.

Behind him at his flanks stood three dogs, two on his right, and one on his left. The closest one to the black and white dog had thick brown hair, and looked slightly pudgy. The one to the right of the brown dog had light brown fur, and a circle around one eye. The two on his right had the same bared teeth, but no evil looking grin. Their eyes were also different. They looked scared and had eyes that were vacant of hate, unlike the black and white one in the center who clearly had loathing for the grey pup.

The grey pup's eyes shifted to the dog on the black and white dogs left. He was thinner and frail, with stripes going down his back like a cat, and he looked afraid. He held his head below his front paws, peeking at the grey pup with one eye that stuck out to the side. His back legs shook and trembled like he was freezing to death.

"You're a little far from your pack, don't you think?" The black and white dog said with a sneer and chuckle. The two dogs on the black and white dogs left mimicked his chuckle.

The pup didn't want to have a fight. He hopped to be accepted by these dogs, and maybe get something to eat. So he spoke slow and steady. "I do not wish to have a fight. Please. I just want something to eat." The grey pup indicated up towards the moose with his nose.

"Food!" the black and white dog laughed. The little dog on the left shook at the laughter, and the dogs on the right copied his laugh. "Do you think a wolf, is suitable to eat our, food?"

"No boss."

"Not at all."

The two dogs on the right responded instantly.

"And what do you think we should do with a wolf?"

"I'm not a full wolf." The pup shouted at the black and white dog. The little dog bolted away in a clambering of feet and snow. The other two watched him run.

"Star, that dog would be afraid of his own shadow." the dark brown dogs said.

"Yeah." The light brown one agreed, then turned his attention back to the grey pup.

"So, boys, what do you think we should do with half a lobo?" the black and white dog said.

The dark brown one grinned, and the light brown one grinned. "I can think of a couple good things." The dark brown one said with a sneer and stepped forward.

The grey pup began to step back as they stepped forward. He didn't dare turn around and see where there might be an exit, because that would be the exact moment when they jumped him. So he kept his eyes locked on the black and white dog. He would be the first to make a move, the others would follow.

The pup back up for over a dozen feet. Then his hind end hit one of the building and the pup's eyes turned to look at where he was pinned. And at that moment the black and white dog attacked.

He leapt full force towards the grey pup and folded him over his left side like an accordion. The pup's head smacked into the edge of the fence right over his left eyebrow, and blood spewed forth down over his eye like a waterfall. The grey pup didn't have a chance. The other two jumped on him and a wrestling match ensued. Their was black, white, light brown, and dark brown all around him.

The grey pup could feel teeth sinking into his fur and taste blood in his mouth. He could feel blows landing across his body from paws and bodies slamming against him. Their was a total feeling of helplessness going through the pup as teeth broke his skin and bruises began to form across his body. With his arms pinned below his body, and his hind legs straight out behind him being bit, there was nothing the grey pup could do to defend himself than keep still and hope they would go away soon.

After ten minute, and a boatload of blood on the snow, the black and white dog stepped away from the grey pup and surveyed the damage he had cause. Blood flowed from the grey pup's mouth and every other spot on his body. He looked still a quiet, almost dead.

"Come on Nikki, Caltag, let's get out of here and leave this wolf to himself." The black and white dog said.

Nikki and Caltag stepped away from the grey pup and headed away from the grey pup. The black and white dog stayed for a moment after they left and watched the grey pup breath, possibly his last breaths.

"Come on Steel." Caltag called from a distance. Steel grinned and turned away, walked a few steps, then ran away into the darkness.

For a long while the grey pup lay in the blood-soaked snow, against the side of a building. It wasn't that he was really injured that bad, though several wound still bled after several minutes. It was the fact that nobody wanted him. The wolf side of his heritage didn't want anything to do with him, and the dog side left him for dead in an alley.

When the grey pup felt sure that nobody watched him from the shadows, he came to an upright position. He could feel blood coagulated to his fur. The feeling stretched all down his chest, back and lefts. The darkness prevented him from looking at the wounds with a careful eye. But even if one of the wounds was bleeding enough that he might want to get help, he didn't want it.

"Where do I belong?" He whispered to himself. "I'm not a dog, and I'm not a wolf." He broke into tears. "So what am I?"

The grey pup let the tears flow down his muzzle and off his chops. Where did he belong? Where? How did he fit into the world? He had been left under a tree by his mother in a snowstorm by himself, almost killed by adult wolves when he sought out their help, almost died in a snowstorm, and beat down and left for dead in an alley by dogs. Each side of his heritage judged him by the other side before they even knew him. The pup let the tears flow freely. His chest hurt too much to sob; otherwise he might have been in a full fledged cry.

"Hello?" Came meek voice from nearby.

The pup turned, with his back tensed against the wall he had been cornered in earlier, he looked for the source of the noise. Would the owner of this voice kill him where he stood?

He searched for the source of the voice in the darkness. Blood stained his eyes, and wounds above them began to swell, preventing him from seeing the figure moving from the shadows.

"Please don't be afraid." The feminine voice said when the grey pup shook and tried to escape into the wall. "I don't want to hurt you." The female stepped closer and closer until she could see the grey pup clearly.

He looked thin and haggard. The ribs on his side stuck out like sticks under a blanket. His legs were mostly muscle, with his bones taking up everything else so he looked like a stumpy, muscle beefed pup.

When the female pup had seen the young creature against the building crying; she had figured that he was just a young little thing. Now that she got to see the grey pup up close, she realized that he most likely was the same age as her. But how could such a thing happen to such a pup?

"Are you okay?" She asked when her initial shock wore off. She looked deep into the eyes of the grey pup and could see something about him. "Do you need any help?"

The grey pup looked up at the rust and cream colored dog in front of him. She was absolutely beautiful with stunning bright eyes that froze him solid. He could have been eaten alive at that exact moment and it wouldn't have mattered.

"Did a black and white dog names Steel do this to you?"

The grey pup couldn't answer. Even if he wanted to answer, the words wouldn't come out.

"Why am I asking? I know he did this to you. Steel is just, such a … I can't even think of what the words to describe Steel are." The female pup looked at the grey pup for a long moment. "Maybe we should get these wounds cleaned, don't you think?"

She leaned in towards the grey pup's upper left eyebrow where a wound at least a quarter inch wide stuck out and bled. The grey pup backed away from her advance

"I'm not going to hurt you. I just don't want these wounds to get infected, since you don't have a good owner to take you to the vet if it did."

She once again leaned in to the pup, and one again the pup moved his head backwards away from her.

"I see you don't really trust me, so why don't we get to know each other. My name's Jenna. What's yours"

The grey pup didn't have a word in his head. His mouth babbled open and closed like he was about to say something, but nothing came.

"Come on, you can at least tell me your name."

Before Jenna would have had a chance to say it again, the grey pup bolted to his feet and ran past her, onto the street, and back towards the boat outside of town. He ran fast and didn't bother to look back until he was halfway to the boat. When he did finally stop to look back, a realization came to mind.

She had cared. She did not notice his wolf heritage, or his dog heritage. She had not judged him by his looks, but by something else. Something deeper.

The grey pup looked back at the town to see if she had followed, she hadn't. Nevertheless she had cared for him, and was willing to talk with him; she actually wanted to talk with him. She didn't try to hurt him, but wanted to help him. For the first time in the young pup's life, a creature of the same species had talked with him in a kind way that wasn't on the level of his mother, but as a friend.

The pup turned towards the boat with a smile on his face. He was home.


	17. The End

Balto shuffled his feet up the hill through the dead grass and flowers until he crested the last hill before Nome. It was the same hill he had come over several years earlier with two polar bears named Muk and Luk, and a Russian snow goose named Boris.

Once atop the hill Balto looked down on his home, Nome. The town was a sight that Balto thought he had long forgotten, and at time would never see again. Yet here he stood, looking down on the town absolutely exhausted from his journey.

Balto's body had changed since he had left the comfort of Nome. Before he had left he had a belly that bulged out, and fat surrounded his muscles on his legs. Now Balto's belly was sucked up against his back grotesquely, and his legs were stringy with thin, yet strong, muscles flowing down from his shoulders. He felt he had the true look of a half-starved grey wolf. But now it was time to return to a civilized life with his family.

Nome had changed since Balto had left. He remembered that in the spring the town had the look that it had just exploded from the seams and lay spread out for more than a hundred yards from the nearest building. Now the town had a feeling that it was pulled in tight with itself for the coming winter, like a giant turtleneck had been brought up around the ears that would soon be cold.

Balto felt surprised that snow didn't cover the ground. Just a short ten miles to the north, in the foothills of the mountains, three feet of snow hindered travel to a crawl. It looked like the depths of winter had flooded the land, and Balto had expected it to slide all the way down to the edge of the ocean. Yet when he got down to a lower level the snow petered out and vanished.

Balto looked to the northwest where half the sun glowed red, while the other half hid below the horizon of a mountain. It was already dark enough that travel became cumbersome, and if Balto waited around any longer, he might not be able to find his way the last five hundred feet into Nome.

He pushed down off the peak of the hill, through the dead grass and in between loose grey granite rocks that stuck out of the ground. When Balto had left in the spring there had been snow around the rocks. All of which probably stayed around the rocks for several days after Balto had left.

Balto reached the bottom of the hill and made a beeline for the town. Out to his left he could see the boat that had been his first and only home. It rested where it always had on the edge of the ocean, slowly rotting down into the ground with every spring thaw.

Balto looked over towards the edge of town where he had first entered the town when he was young. The building where he had seen his first human come stumbling out and drop a bottle, making bunches of pretty lights all over the ends of logs. It was also once the home of the only human, before the serum run, who had actually liked him and brought him gifts of meat, blankets, and a strange wind-up cat.

Balto moved on towards the edge of town. The streets had their edges lit up by lantern light coming from inside window. All of the lights came from inside except for one hung on the outside corner of the telegraph office and another at the other end of the block.

As Balto looked at the corner of the telegraph office, he noticed that a red furred figure hid just around the corner of the building in the shadows. To small to be a human, it was just the right size to be a dog. The figure looked straight out into the darkness where Balto stood. It was almost like the creature had been waiting for him.

"Jenna." Balto said to himself. She had been waiting patiently at the edge of town for him to arrive back. How sweet, he thought.

Balto picked up the pace. He couldn't wait to see the look in Jenna's eyes when he came running out of the darkness and into her waiting embrace.

But then as Balto came closer he realized that the dog sitting in the shadows wasn't Jenna. The creature had large muscles and wide shoulders like a working dog. It was at that moment that Balto realized exactly who it was.

"Kodi." Balto yelled out, now within shouting distance of Kodi.

Kodi rocked forward until he stood and stepped out into the light. He then sat back down with his face out into the darkness.

Balto entered the lantern light slowly. He felt like he was under the gaze of judgment. That every action he made now, and in the past, was all ending up in a final ruling that would decide the rest of his life.

Balto came to a sitting position half a dozen feet in front of Kodi.

"Hi dad." Kodi said with an ambiguous tone to his voice. "Did you have a safe trip?"

Balto sighed, turned his head to the side slightly, and raised that same shoulder up to his chin. "It was okay, kind of long and boring, but I discovered a lot about myself." Balto sighed long and hard. "Listen, Kodi, I would just like to say that I'm … sorry. I shouldn't have attacked you for laughing. It was just that I had a lot on my mind, and I thought that you were … well …"

"It's okay dad." Kodi said with a smile. It made Balto's heart melt. "Mom told me that you really didn't know anything about your mother, and that laughing at that joke … you know, hurt you."

Balto smiled long and wide. He felt proud and strong. He felt like he had arrived home. "Why don't we go and see what mom's up to?" Balto suggested.

Balto stood and stepped forward. Kodi turned and stood next to him. Together they began to walk down the street towards Jenna's

"So has Jenna been worrying much about me?" Balto asked.

Kodi shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, she got more worried when fall began to come; but she was worried the entire time that you were out of her sight."

Balto smiled. "Just like her to worry."

Kodi giggled "Dad, you're funny."

A long moment of silence fell between the two of them. Balto had never felt more at home than he did at that exact second. He had his son walking next to him smiling and laughing. He would soon be with his mate and be able to see that flash of life in her eyes when he came walking in. Then tomorrow he would wake up to questions about his journey and everything he had learned about his family.

"So dad." Kodi interjected into Balto's thoughts. "Did you learn anything about your past that you didn't know before?"

Balto smiled as they walked down the main street of Nome, under the stars and flashes of northern light, into the sunset, and into history. "Nothing I didn't already know son. Nothing I didn't already know."

The end.

(The characters of: Balto, Jenna, Kodi, Muk, Luk, Boris, Aleu, Dusty, Kirby, Ralph, and all other characters that exist in the Balto movies 1-3, belong to somebody other than me. While all other characters belong to me. No character can be taken and used without my permission, and no part of this story can be copied in word, or form, without my permission, as according by law of the Copyright Administration. Peace out, Erik.)


End file.
